Wednesday’s news that Facebook will buy instant messaging app WhatsApp $19 billion, left people stunned and scrambling for comparisons. What is cheaper than WhatsApp? Tapscape initially snarked that Honduras would have been cheaper.
But that was just a cheap shot, though the serious question remains — certainly Facebook could’ve spent the money more wisely?
However, we weren’t the only blog having a laugh at Facebook and WhatsApp’s expense. Notably Things That Are Cheaper Than WhatsApp — yeah, it’s a Tumblr — popped up to gather the silliness.
And, as advertised, they present a fairly lengthy and getting longer list of items that are cheaper than WhatsApp:
— Find the National Cancer Institute for four years (FY 2014 budget of $4.923 billion)
— Buy the National Basketball Associaton (NBA), $18 billion
— Hubble Space Telescope — Cumulative design, build, launch and maintenance costs, $10 billion
— Top Soccer Teams, including Real Madrid, Manchester United, Barcelona, Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Milan
— Clean Water & Sanitation for the Planet, $10 billion
— London 2012 Olympics, $10.4 billion
— Iceland, $14 billion
— Fund NASA for one year, $19 billion
— The Gap, a US based clothing retailer, $19 billion
— USS Ford, US Navy aircraft carrier (image above), $13 billion
— 19 billion regular McDonald’s Cheeseburgers
And, that is just a shortlist of the big ticket items, infrastructure, government agencies and companies that are cheaper than WhatsApp. Personally, I’d opt to give the planet clean water and sanitation ($10 billion), and then sink the rest into public transportation and green energy projects ($9 billion) across the US.
How would you spend $19 billion Zuckberg has committed to purchasing WhatsApp? Would you go for a full on Dr Evil empire or choose to help out your fellow.
The possibilities are almost endless…
What’s your take?