If it was "free" then the company would have gone out of business long ago. So it is not free and she is a revenue generator for them. In return she might want some sort of basic support.

Given the market value of the company, then it should be able to comply with basic standards of say decency, honesty and perhaps ... transparency.

Its 'free', and you are the product (Congratulations!). You pay with your metadata (address book). Metadata is invaluable. Facebook knows everyone's connections. I'm even included in someone's address book, even though I don't use WhatsApp or any other Facebook service. I'm not benefiting from Facebook's free services, yet I am the product. It is disgusting, I hate this company, but I can't blame them. They get away with their nefarious crap for fun & profit.

They are a business, not a charity, so it seems appropriate. Nobody forces them to provide the service for free.

The other argument is that the major messaging platforms have collectively become an essential basic utility, and accordingly carry some responsibility.

A "free" service run by one of the richest and most profitable companies in the world. There should be a high bar.

It's not free. We pay with our data.

Yes, especially for a free service.

I've been asking friends to get off WhatsApp forever, and everyone wants to get off it. But family members and clients are on it, so now everyone downloads multiple messaging apps, ones they want to use and the ones they're forced go use.

At this point even if WhatsApp explicitly says they'll sell your information to Satan, people will still use it because it's free.

So ask for some money if you need to.

Taking on so many users means you get responsibilities to society that smaller companies don't get.

It's not free, it requires handing over something of unknowable scope worth much more than money, and it's not a service if they've forcefully inserted themselves into the social graph as the only way of communication for many including being the only way to access community and government services in many places.

Crowing 'private company' doesn't absolve you of providing the functions of the town square when you've bulldozed and replaced it and repeatedly stated that you are the town square.

A free service that is now a backbone of communication across the world is more of a utility than a service to me

If it were truly free it would have died many years ago.