I can't answer your question but i think you should be more specific.

Your phrasing obviously comes with the interpretation that if a split-up would bankrupt a part, it shouldn't be done. Why should this be taken into consideration?

Secondly. It has value. A different party could invest and keep it going. Why is it important that it sustains itself?

If the objective is to increase competition, by making WhatsApp into the Facebook competitor they currently aren't, you need them to stay in business.

Of course, if you just wanted to punish facebook by destroying shareholder value, or you're certain WhatsApp users will move to an FB competitor rather than to FB itself, you might not care if WhatsApp stays in business post-breakup.

As far as I'm aware, the only thing WhatsApp competed with Facebook over is Messenger, and even that seems like a stretch to me.

My impression of the situation is that Facebook bought WhatsApp for its data and user-base; not because it was competition.

I guess it's not like anyone is employed to work on Whatsapp or anything. It's not like millions of people use it to stay in contact with their families every day.

You split and one part dies. If the commission involved put up rules on the merger and FB broke the rules, this is what happens.

Whatsapp has enough of a userbase and a usecase that enough people will be willing to pay to sustain it.

What _will_ happen is that other free services will pop up and be used, and some users will migrate to those. Which is a good thing. We'll have actual competition on the field instead of a single dominant player.

I've long held a theory that many of the "basic infrastructure" pieces of technology would best be put forward by non-profits. The profit imperative can be an insidious corrosive influence.

When the WhatsApp acquisition happened while they had only a few dozen employees and were reportedly profitable off of their $1 per year business model, it was clear to me that the days when a small non-profit could run the world’s chat infrastructure weren’t far off.

That the Signal Foundation is now basically funded by interest earned on money made from that very WhatsApp sale is quite poetic.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/signal-foun...

OT: Similar for health, in the UK you can see once some parts were privatised more and more gets privatised - not surprisingly, these companies have a duty to grow.

Why should we support exploitative business models?

Why should we care if WhatsApp can't sustain itself?

I'll happily chip in a dollar a year or so.

Seize it and then sell it in an auction. WhatsApp is so insanely popular that it will for sure find a buyer.

Let it fail?

Same way you do when they may have enough revenue.