Other apps like telegram allows anyone to directly interact with them
Why using res-sellers, like carriers use re-sellers to sell SMS integration? Distribution and fair-use control. First, companies like Twilio are the natural partners to sell one more channel to customers that already integrate to SMS. Second, partners will help enforce and control anti-spam efforts. If opening Whatsapp API turns it into a spam jungle like email or sms, it will certainly lose its appeal and users will start switching to the next new spam-free chat app.
They already paid over 100 million for just making false promises when they bought WhatsApp, now that the EU has sharpened their blades to take on big data farms like Google and Facebook, doing something like that would be suicide for FB. Any additional data farming would probably attract auditors and lawsuits that Facebook can't get out of so easily anymore.
Facebook would need to put a lot of work into following the GDPR (because someone using an Asian VPN is still protected, so IP based geoblocking won't work) to prevent a fine. It would be a very risky move.
I don't think Facebook is going to sell private WhatsApp information any time soon.
(Also speculating) if that's more or less how it works, and an ads conglomerate like Google or Facebook is worth hundreds of billions, then even a fine of a billion dollars wouldn't be enough to deter them from this activity.
None of this is meant to stir up controversy or be negative or anything, I just think its an interesting mental exercise to consider this scenario and these motivations.
I assume you don't mean this literally? 1bn in $100 notes weighs over 1 ton.
I assume they just meant "money"?
It seems that independent developers will never get legal access to integrate automation or build CRM type apps using WhatsApp, which sucks considering how prevalent WhatsApp usage is.
Other advantage of WhatsApp over social media is you don't know is something is viral because you can't count the likes.
The issue is the 3rd party. I don't understand why it needs to go through another service.
Even with Verizon's proposed A2P charge per SMS, it is half the cost to use SMS for conversing with customers compared to WhatsApp. Said surcharge has been postponed repeatedly, meaning SMS is an order of magnitude cheaper to use than WhatsApp
I think the idea here is that if you're building a Whatsapp bot, you probably want the other types of bots that Twilio offers anyway and it's easier if the services are bundled together under a single vendor.
WhatsApp's founders were inclined to go with #1. Mark Zuckerberg appears to prefer #2 and #3.