On 11/20/2014 02:29 AM, Wasa Bee wrote: > I am confused: if whatsapp *really* does E2E encryption so even *they* > cannot snoop on messages in bulk (i.e. at scale without doing it > per-user) and therefore cannot mine the data, why did Facebook spend > 19Billion $ for it? Is this a gift to the world?
By acquiring WhatsApp, Facebook was able to defend against defection to another ecosystem. Facebook, like other tech titans, thinks of itself as a vertically integrated monopoly. They don't care which part of the monopoly is able to produce profit as long as the monopoly as a whole is profitable. By bringing WhatsApp into the Facebook silo, Facebook is able to patch a glaring missing element to their vertical integration and ensure that existing elements do not face a major threat (music, photos, games, identity, etc). WhatsApp would be worth the money even if it becomes a huge money pit for Facebook. Also, as far as observers can tell, Facebook is eager to own a big piece of mobile/electronic payments and WhatsApp puts them in a much better position to do that. Sometimes the actions of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google (and to a some extent Facebook) make sense only if you imagine that they use Diamond Age as a playbook where the goal is vertically integrated corporate city-states. -elijah _______________________________________________ Messaging mailing list [email protected] https://moderncrypto.org/mailman/listinfo/messaging
