Facebook buys WhatsApp but what could it have spent the money on instead? - Telegraph.co.uk

Stop welfare cuts in the UK

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Last month Chancellor George Osborne announced that £12 billion would be cut from welfare spending after the 2015 election. This is almost exactly the same amount as Facebook paid for WhatsApp. The company could help out the under 25 claimants and council house tenants who are expected to be hit the hardest by the cuts.

A copy of the Telegraph for all

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Facebook could have bought every person in the world a copy of the Daily Telegraph and still had some change. With a copy costing £1.40 and the world's population numbering more than 7.2 billion, Facebook would have had approximately £1.4 billion pocket money left over.

Take on a country

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Facebook could have bought Mozambique. The country's GDP is $18.9 billion (11.32 billion) which is just under the rate that WhatsApp was sold for.

Create a drone programme

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Amazon is testing unmanned drones to deliver goods to customers but Facebook could have developed its own drone fleet. It cost $11.8 billion (£7.1 billion) to create one of the most powerful drones deployed in the world, the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drone. It is capable of remote controlled flights and is designed for long-endurance, high-altitude surveillance. The drones have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and according to the Ministry of Defence they have been used to fire more than 400 "precision-guided" weapons since 2007. The Reaper has a range of 1,000 nautical miles and an operational altitude of 50,000 feet and be used in a number of non-military situations. One Reaper drone costs approximately $16.9 million (£10.1 million) .

Buy 20 football teams

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Facebook could have bought the 20 most valuable football clubs in the world. According to the latest figures by Forbes, Real Madrid is the world's most valuable football club with a value of $3.3 billion. Buying all top 20 teams combined with cost approximately $18.9 million. For that Facebook would get seven English football teams, two Spanish teams, four Germam teams, four Italian teams, two French teams and a Brazilian team.

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