lubricus writes "Facebook announced plans to acquire WhatsApp for four billion cash, plus 12 billion in Facebook shares.
Additionally, WhatsApp employees and founders will receive three billion in restricted stock which will vest in four years. Facebook also agreed to a one billion dollar break up fee.
WhatsApp says they have message volume which approaches the global SMS volume, and hope to have one billion users. Even at those figures, Facebook is paying $16 per user.
I'm guessing WhatsApp will send Snapchat developers a cake."
(Score: 1) by SuggestiveLanguage on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:52PM
So, like every other sufficiently wealthy service provider, Facebook wants to be what AOL: Walled garden, nonstop in-your-face advertising, dumbed-down, intrusive interfaces, poor security, and ever-escalating rent seeking by charging a premium for services provided elsewhere for low or no cost.