Sometimes, the best questions at a conference don't come from the interviewers but the audience.

That was the case on Wednesday at this year's F8 developers conference in San Francisco. Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker moderated an all-star panel with WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton, Instagram cofounder Mike Krieger, and Facebook Messenger VP David Marcus.

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Meeker, one of the of the foremost Internet analysts in Silicon Valley, led a thoughtful discussion, but the showstopper came when a software engineer in the audience asked Acton whether WhatsApp would release an API of its own, so third-party developers can officially develop compatible products.

"We have done a lot of transactional messaging using traditional email and SMS, and we've recently moved into the international market," the engineer explained to the audience, who clapped and hollered. "We're desperate to communicate with our members where WhatsApp would be a wonderful platform. We're good developers."

Acton for his part conceded WhatsApp had no current plans to do so.

"We don't want to inundate users with messages they don't want," Acton explained of the choice. "I am very empathetic to your cause. I receive emails on a regular basis from people who want to run their business or want to run something using WhatsApp as the backbone for communication, but we're balancing that with the user experience."

The audience seemed less than thrilled.

WhatsApp have no plans for an API in the next year. Bold statement in a room of developers. — Jason Smale (@jwswj) March 26, 2015

But it's important to note that WhatsApp is merely the latest in a long history of tech companies to restrict outside developer access. It just so happens in Acton's case, the melodrama played out in a very public forum.