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Comment by Firmwarrior | Hacker News Reader

Re your first part, WhatsApp could've expanded out into a full social network the same way LINE and WeChat did in Asia. So I think Zuck was onto something

Re: the rest: That's an interesting outlook. I wonder if younger audiences are more resilient to being tricked into trying to compete for "Likes" in a semi-public forum of their friends and family..

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> WhatsApp could've expanded out into a full social network the same way LINE and WeChat did in Asia

That was never going to happen. If you listen to the interviews from Brian Action, he wanted WhatsApp to stay minimal. He didn't like those other apps that had tons of features/ bloat.

Acton left Facebook over a dispute in the direction Facebook wanted to take WhatsApp. Changing the app's direction after his departure seems like it would have been entirely possible.

Not really. Action knew what Zuckerberg was up to. That's why he implemented e2ee behind Zuckerberg's back so he couldn't scrap users' data like he does with Facebook Messenger. To double back and remove e2ee would have caused lot of users to leave. You can't run finance/marketplace on e2ee because you need to know the flow of funds for money laundering regulations.

Brian made sure Zuckerberg couldn't turn Whatsapp into another Facebook: data hoarding to sell it. I think he regretted selling Whatsapp deep down. That's why he left a billion on the table. To show to himself he wasn't a complete sell out. That's just my take though.

Using a spyware VPN called Onavo might not be the same thing as 'onto something'

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