I personally disagree with the idea that Zuck was being a "visionary" here. I don't think buying Instagram for $1bn was a particularly visionary move but rather just... cautious. Facebook also bought Gowalla, Lightbox.com, Friendly, TBH and tried to buy Snapchat, Musically (since merged into TikTok), Houseparty, etc. All these are/were competitors and threats. Some were small, some were big. Some worked out and grew, others didn't.
The Instagram acquisition happened fairly early on, so it makes sense that it was worth a lot of money to Facebook. Now that Facebook is huge it can get turned down by a company like Snapchat, and it'll just go ahead and copy/improve its features with its much-larger team, capital, and user-base. Back then, buying the competitor was the best option since Facebook didn't have as many resources or reasons to believe they could compete as effectively.
Moreover, I'd argue the reason Instagram worked out so well is precisely because it got acquired by Facebook. Had Instagram had to figure out its own monetization strategy, find its own clients, compete with the established players, build its own infrastructure, etc. it probably wouldn't have been able to grow as much or as quickly.
But everyone will make up a number to support whatever side of the argument they are on.
In any case, Whatsapp as a standalone company would definitely go bankrupt. The infra cost would be insane with such little revenue.
Maybe that's a sign that the acquisitions deserved more scrutiny?
Instagram for $1B? WhatsApp for $17B? Really?
FTC definitely isn't competent enough to understand how visionary the acquisition was.
To be fair, not many was that competent. Otherwise, Google and other cash-loaded companies would have acquired these companies with higher offer.
It could have easily been Twitter + Vines + Periscope where the acquired products went nowhere.
It's unfair to Zuck for being very visionary about this. But antitrust isn't about being fair to an individual company...