Hate to be that guy, but how can a star in a bottle cost only ~105% of WhatsApp. One of them is incorrectly valued.
I totally understand that I am cherry-picking here. There are many things in the world that are over- or under-valued when you compare their economic contribution to their societal contribution. I just thought this would be an interesting point to make on Hacker News.
No, you could say that it would cost you $20B to build a copy of ITER -- very different. You can't buy ITER for what was paid to build it. Or maybe you can. We have no idea because the valuation is unknown. The project is so risky, we're spreading the cost around 35 countries. If we thought it was more of a sure thing, every country would be trying to build their own. Many companies, too.
Though think about how popular of a communications platform that WhatsApp is, particularly in parts of Asia and Africa. It's transformed the communications industry in those areas!
That still may not account for the relatively small difference between the two, but it helps put into perspective exactly why WhatsApp was so valuable.
Had carriers priced themselves properly, WhatsApp would have never had a foothold.
This is a roundabout way of saying that you are really looking at just the cost - what it takes to build this thing. Nobody is appreciating the value of it except the nations that signed up - and they're not selling a percentage.