Facebook has bought WhatsApp for $16 billion, here’s what it could have bought instead

FACEBOOK has just dropped an insane amount of cash on a messaging app. What could it have bought instead?

27 billion messages a year are sent through the WhatsApp service.

SOCIAL network giant Facebook has just paid $16 billion for the popular messaging app WhatsApp, according to an SEC filing.

WhatsApp currently has more than 400 million users worldwide and 27 billion messages a day are sent through the service, compared to the 21 billion SMS messages that are sent globally.

But who needs that when for the nearly same about of money you could have A SPACE PROGRAM!

Yep, the cash that Facebook dropped on WhatsApp just falls short of the $17 billion budget of NASA.

If a space program doesn’t interest Facebook, it could have also bought:

• Instagram 16 times

• Nokia twice

• Skype twice

• MTV three times

• Nintendo twice

• 30,188 Ferrari 458s

• The world’s most expensive island, Lanai Island in Hawaii, 26 times

• 6.4 billion Krispy Kreme doughnuts

Of course, when the app it just bought is cannibalising the $100 billion a year SMS industry, that may turn out to be a better financial option than a Krispy Kreme for everyone in the world.

NASA's entire budget for 2014 is $17 Billion... I'm gonna go ahead and say Facebook overpaid.

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) February 19, 2014

Did Facebook pay too much? Join the debate on Twitter @harrytuckerr or @newscomauHQ