WhatsApp has been a goldmine for Facebook and they've been terrible stewards of the platform, with significant moderation woes cutting both ways. It's meant to be their foray into countries that don't typically use Facebook and serves to force people onto their platform.
I'd be very ok if Facebook was forced to offload it.
Come on, FB ran whatsapp for many years with zero revenue. Whatsapp would not be what it is today without FB.
> they've been terrible stewards of the platform
In what sense? When they enabled end-to-end encryption for billions of people? Or launched encrypted backups?
And Walmart undercut prices to the point of losing revenue to establish their position. Your lack of profitability does not somehow undo your monopolizing.
> When they enabled end-to-end encryption for billions of people?
Whatsapp still does not have global E2E [1].
> Or launched encrypted backups?
Yet the FBI still puts pen registers on the service [2] which makes backups moot.
> Whatsapp would not be what it is today without FB.
I think WhatsApp would be a much better product in someone elses hands. [3] [4]
[1] - https://nypressnews.com/news/technology/meta-confirms-messen...
[2] - https://propertyofthepeople.org/document-detail/?doc-id=2111...
[3] - https://m.dw.com/en/whatsapp-in-india-scourge-of-violence-in...
[4] - https://techhq.com/2021/11/after-record-gdpr-fine-whatsapp-f...