TL; DR Facebook does not want Whatsapp to be an independent service. Facebook tried to force people to Messenger and kill WhatsApp.
What most are ignoring is the background composition of the whole picture. Mass media distorts memory and focus. Facebook was trying to kill Whatsapp. FB has been ordered to divest WhatsApp and Instagram instead of paying millions in fines. The ruling surprised them, accelerating decisions made to merge the operations that were made long ago.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whatsapp+f...eaves+facebook
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whatsapp+i...e+court+ruling
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whatsapp+instagram+divest
FB had planned to break the law as usual, be punished with fines, have new laws tabled against such a decision so competitors will not be able to do the same. Microsoft has done this numerous times before.
Any self-respecting human would have ditched FB once they found out the founder considered them to be "dumb-f**ks". Any considerate dev would have ditched Whatsapp when they sent cease-and-desist orders to a very supporting community back in 2014 or so to stop contributing modifications and stop interacting with the code. Humans will keep making bad decisions, the more they flock together to do so.
Being forced to have WhatsApp on any of my devices brings me anguish. Email use in business is not being attended to (security and etiquette are too lax). People still think a digital signature is a picture of their handwriting on paper! Until Jamaica embraces independent, free and open standards of doing things, our tech will suck {us dry}.
At the moment, Durov wants to monetize Telegram. Knew this was coming since he refused to put the server into public domain like he said he would. Telegram is his company's creation so let that slide: he pushed client flexibility by opening the api and having free and open clients attach to the servers. If he had started a foundation long ago for donations and tax emptions etc. he would have got free money with such ease, with more reach than even the ginormous matrix protocol will be getting!