Facebook has bought messaging startup WhatsApp for the tidy sum of $21 billion.

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WhatsApp is a popular messaging service that lets users send messages via mobile devices to one another – virtually for free (the first year is free, and every subsequent year costs $1). 

Since launching in 2009 WhatsApp now has 450 million users, with another 1 million joining every day. That puts the value of each user at US$42.

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The purchase is the largest in Facebook's history, dwarfing its $1 billion buy out of Instagram. It's also the biggest internet deal since AOL's US$124 billion merger with Time Warner in 2001.

Facebook has simultaneously absorbed a major competitor and beefed up its arsenal against SnapChat, which had the temerity to reject a US$3 billion offer from Facebook last year.

But has Facebook paid too much? WhatsApp does not run ads, and if Facebook's track record is anything to go by, it will only be a matter of time before they look to monetise their new prize possession.

How users respond to this is the $21 billion question. 

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