Sure? They even talk about location of their servers around the world. Or maybe you are talking about the control of the servers (wich are closed source and cannot be implemented (except by reverse engineering)).
And the world could end, but it is not predicted yet. Free sowftware community could then fork last GPLv2 version and do reverse engineering for the servers.
Having an open protocol wich can be implemented wherever you like and with promises of good privacy protection is great and much better than actual situation. Telegram is getting very popular, and while defeating Whatsapp is difficult, maybe is doable. Most of people don't worry about privacy or openess but about not having to pay 1$/year. It's stupid, they pay much more for the mobile service, but I don't care while I get an open, widely used and privacy respectful IM.