It all comes down to assets. YouTube integrated well with Google and it was getting too expensive to build Google Videos. WhatsApp integrated well into Facebook

It all comes down to assets. YouTube integrated well with Google and it was getting too expensive to build Google Videos. WhatsApp integrated well into Facebook's model as well as being a strategic position to pin potential competitors. Growth, churn, arr, etc doesn't really matter that much. My own company was acquired because someone wanted a marketing channel to sell diet food and it was 6x cheaper than FB ads. The revenue metrics were pretty sucky, but like product, you compare it to what they're doing now. There's a lot of businesses in Southeast Asia being acquired too because it takes a year to get past regulations or because a company like Alibaba doesn't want to deal with the mess of hiring 300 people in Indonesia and Thailand.