They build walls and fences because of economic inequality. I have been in places with huge 3m walls and in places with no fences around the house and owner name plates over the doors. In former places there are jobless people asking for job in the streets, lets call them thieves.
Walled gardens just keep small developers out of the marketplace by rising the bar. Now you need to pay money or have a name, so WhatsApp, Viber and similar shit can retain monopolies and keep their users despite being filled with ads and offer less security than competitors. Jabber clients and independent media never get a "verified" badge.
If you want to download "genuine" WhatsApp, go to their website, check their TLS certificate (you can never be sure, they don't even bother to get a EV cert, even for WhatsApp web; https://app.wire.com/ has an EV, for example) and follow the link to Google Play. Software repos are not here to do the job of CAs.
And of course you go to their website by googling them. Maybe clicking one of the 5 adword links at the top of the page that look like search results. Works out nicely for someone.
Walled gardens just keep small developers out of the marketplace by rising the bar. Now you need to pay money or have a name, so WhatsApp, Viber and similar shit can retain monopolies and keep their users despite being filled with ads and offer less security than competitors. Jabber clients and independent media never get a "verified" badge.
If you want to download "genuine" WhatsApp, go to their website, check their TLS certificate (you can never be sure, they don't even bother to get a EV cert, even for WhatsApp web; https://app.wire.com/ has an EV, for example) and follow the link to Google Play. Software repos are not here to do the job of CAs.