>>>>>>Here in the Netherlands almost everybody who used Whatsapp is replacing it by Telegram. How about you all in the States and other countries?
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>>>>>Not much here so far but someone knows something about it as Mark Z. just purchased it for 19 billions!
>>>>
>>>>Weird. Here in Europe almost ALL people think it's ridiculous what Zuckerberg and the owner (Jan Koum) of Whatsapp did. They esp. fear the fact that Zuckerberg gets all their telephone numbers and insight in their really private contacts. It is pure greed of Koum that he actually sold Wapp. Sergey Brin of Google has asked him one week earlier not to sell to Facebook, simply because he (Brin) fears that Zuckerberg will become too powerful. And that is not merely jealousy.
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>>>>If Facebook also has all the telephone data (who you contact, when, how often) and combines this info with the data it already has, it gets far too much insight in our private life. We in Europe are increasingly becoming aware of this all and we don't like that. There has been a mass migration to esp. Telegram, one of the other messaging apps.
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>>>I am sure $19 billion is pretty persuasive. That is 19 Instagrams, and people thought Facebook was overpaying for them.
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>>Apart from what actually triggered me to start this thread, don't you think it is simply ridiculous, that amount of money?! Is there ANY programmer in the world worth that much money?
>
>We frequently hear that argument here about athletes and entertainers. Economically a person is worth what someone is willing to pay them. You can't put personal value judgments on it.

Can't we? Ah, you are one of those (liberals?) who are of opinion that in a truly free world it must be allowed to become a billionaire! But how many billions are still reasonable and how many are no longer, even in your opinion? My personal stance is that, let's say, less than a billion is fair, but billions isn't.

A problem is the capital of companies. Certain (internationally operating) companies are poor if they have less than a billion, for example an airline. The Dutch KLM was bought some 10 years ago by Air France for less than a billion. The whole idea that a company with 55 employees is 'worth' 19 times that amount, it's ridiculous. The KLM this year earns 5 euros per seat. In a bad year, of which there were plenty since the crisis, KLM/Air France makes annual losses far above 1 billion a year. So, they really need buffers of several billions. But this cannot possibly be a requirement for companies like Whatsapp or Apple. The only reason why they make such tremendous income is because they sell to people allover the world, not just to the people in some country. A big problem of all that money is that they are able - and they make use of it - to buy all copyrights and competitors. You and I are no longer able to invent something and try to make a living with it without running the risk of being confronted with a lawyer of e.g. Apple who says that the idea was already theirs. The new capitalists get richer and richer and more powerful. And liberals are not prepared to do something about it, just because they think that the free market principle is by far better. My stance is that regulations must prevent such an unfair playing field.