It’s not. If I was an investor in Facebook, i’d be terrified. What’s app is 20 year old technology, technology that died because people lost interest. It’s a fad overseas now, but it will fade again easily.
Whatsapp works. I use Wechat a lot more though, but use both every day.
Just to add a data point for people who don’t know whatsapp:
Yesterday there was a server problem for a few hours. It was chaos, panic, the streets ran red with blood (ok, slight exaggeration). It was reported in the news, everyone was on facebook exclaiming about whatsapp being down, I got text messages and emails - it was big.
It was also annoying. I was trying to contact some friends to go out for drinks, I emailed and facebooked, but they didn’t respond. Then I had to try to work out how my text messages work. Man, that was some ridiculous shit, I had to press way too many buttons and it cost me friggin money! Phhsh. Good thing whatsapp is back now.
this is worth noting, even as one might wonder if it’s worth $19 billion.
Instant messaging died out? It never has, and streamlined IMing on phones be it Whatsapp, Viber etc. is extremely useful.