As an immigrant from India in the US, when FB bought WhatsApp, I still remember the sense of surprise/wonder among my american freinds/colleagues as to why What

As an immigrant from India in the US, when FB bought WhatsApp, I still remember the sense of surprise/wonder among my american freinds/colleagues as to why Whatsapp was worth so much. The kind of traction Whatsapp has, even now in India, is something no bay area startup can even dream of achieving. Every family member, remotely related relatives, every single classmate of mine since childhood, everyone has whatsapp, and almost everyone uses it everyday. as someone who has no FB apps on phone other than whatsapp, I hope/wish this move means someone from messenger/insta can send message to Whatsapp account and vice versa. Nothing more than that. FB has done a good job in keeping Whatsapp true to it's core features (except the status/stories debacle). Once it's whatsapp payments / business messaging picks up, there's no looking back for FB even if it's core FB web platform goes to zero, Whatsapp + Messenger + Instagram will be a force to reckon with.