If you think about it, there was no other way this could have played out. Acton (and maybe Koum) are privacy idealists, but could never have gone to the next level of philanthropy via massive wealth just by organic Whatsapp growth and revenue.
They needed the FB acquisition to supercharge their wallets, needed the pound of flesh to be demanded for the price that was paid in order to revisit their original mission, and now we're seeing Acton at least refocus on easy-to-use encrypted communications via Signal and potentially other platforms. The FB money has allowed for potentially more investments in the privacy tools sphere, if Acton continues his work in that area.
Whatsapp is a massively dominant messaging service, but the drive for privacy amongst consumers will continue to increase. It'll be interesting to see how we all communicate with the next evolution of all these apps in 10 years.
On one hand I wonder if money should really be apportioned to people who’d sell their user base to FB, like, will they make the best decisions down the road? Another part of me thinks well, better the money in a good person’s hands than FB’s. But you have to assume Acton et al are truly better people than FB, and still the user base is offered up as a sacrifice to that. Doesn’t feel great to me.
They needed the FB acquisition to supercharge their wallets, needed the pound of flesh to be demanded for the price that was paid in order to revisit their original mission, and now we're seeing Acton at least refocus on easy-to-use encrypted communications via Signal and potentially other platforms. The FB money has allowed for potentially more investments in the privacy tools sphere, if Acton continues his work in that area.
Whatsapp is a massively dominant messaging service, but the drive for privacy amongst consumers will continue to increase. It'll be interesting to see how we all communicate with the next evolution of all these apps in 10 years.