Is it time to think of WhatsApp as a public service?

Journey of WhatsApp in a nutshell

The journey of WhatsApp started much before it was launched in 2009. One of its founders, Jan Koum, grew up in communist Ukraine where phone tapping was not unusual. He immigrated to the US at 16 with his mother and joined Yahoo later.

So when Koum and his bright colleague Brian Acton quit Yahoo and later started work on a messaging app, one of the main themes was democratizing phone-based communication.

And they did it. 13 years on, WhatsApp has become an integral part of the daily routine of almost 2 billion across the globe. And with over 550 million users, India is one of the biggest markets for WhatsApp.