Don't look at it as a messaging company. Look upon it as a communication company. Over the last 20 yrs, any company which has make communication with others easier has profited handsomely....eg Skype, mobile-phone operators.
ICQ turned out to be practically worthless. MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger. Those ended up not generating any meaningful business what-so-ever.
How do we know at this point that WhatsApp, Snapchat, et al. aren't going to end up in the same history bin?
How about webmail? Is Yahoo's email service worth $20 billion dollars? Is Gmail worth $20 billion? Nope.
ICQ turned out to be practically worthless. MSN Messenger, AOL Messenger, Yahoo Messenger. Those ended up not generating any meaningful business what-so-ever.
How do we know at this point that WhatsApp, Snapchat, et al. aren't going to end up in the same history bin?
How about webmail? Is Yahoo's email service worth $20 billion dollars? Is Gmail worth $20 billion? Nope.