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One thing I have been wondering - how will they monetize WhatsApp?

Haven't they already monetized on WhatsApp? They've already been able to gather a massive amount of social graph data and personal details, phone number, location information.

If they made any amount of value on WhatsApp data, the users are never informed. I think the only way to really know is to join as an employee and find out what they do/did with it. The only thing we are aware of is advertising when we see it, everything else is nebulous.

Agreed - WhatsApp data is getting added to their social graph for sure. However, they have not yet made any attempt so far to, say, inject ads into chats or on the app itself. Despite their statement of end-to-end security, they still control the end points, so this kind of ad injection could be compatible.

They do. It's a data gathering platform for better ad targetting of people who don't know Whatsapp belongs to FB (= everyone minus few nerds)

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