Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
So sending me an FB message is now a black hole and I'm fine with that. FB's decision just pushed me and all other similar users (users that already are on the fringes of FB usage, using it only rarely) even further away.
I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or good thing for them, since honestly I don't know what FB could do alternately to win back people in my "barely use FB" demographic, and from comments here it does seem like people who actually use FB regularly did not share my reaction ("screw it then") and instead felt forced to install the app and move on with their lives.
Why not use Messenger without Facebook?
My reason not to use Facebook was because it trivializes friendships. With Facebook, I wouldn't have to go out of my way to be "friends" with someone, so the relationship would be less meaningful. But Messenger doesn't share that property --- you have to bother to click on someone's name and you have to bother to think up a good message to send them. That means it's no worse than any other IM client, with the strong advantage that your real-world friends already use it. You get to keep up with them in the way you want to, and they get to keep up with you in the way they want to.
Best of both worlds?
1. The mandatory "seen" indicator
2. All of your messages are beholden to a private company, permanently stored in plaintext
3. They analyze said messages to deliver advertisements. Seriously, one time I mentioned buying a Samsung SSD to my friend in chat, and all of a sudden I got a ton of SSD advertisements on the sidebar. Same thing when I mentioned Rick and Morty.
4. It's Facebook, for crying out loud.
Soon you may not have to! https://googleblog.blogspot.sg/2016/05/allo-duo-apps-messagi...
While I kinda get removing it from the mobile app, I don't really know what the rationale is for getting rid of mobile web chat though. It's not like it's disappearing from the desktop web app anytime soon, right?
right?
Personally I'm not convinced that "Westerners" are going to get on board with Chinese-style all-in-one chat apps. I'm doubly unconvinced that Facebook will pull it off.
Interesting. I have been much happier since killing the Fb app'a notification and badge permissions.
I'm guessing that within the next one year or so, Facebook will force people to move to official apps even on desktop systems (like Windows and OS X), closing browser based access completely. That would give Facebook more control on tracking, ads, etc.
There's a cost to using the free Messenger service [1]. They also want to make it into WeChat.
Fortunately, vendor lock-in breeds resentment and dissidents. Hopefully, a better alternative will come from this.
If that weren't true, I wouldn't use Messenger, and if that's not true for you, I can understand not using it.
I don't really understand, however, why folks like you try to make this a morality issue.
And I actually agree with you...
If you only ever use chat in the browser, you only see messages when you actively check it. With the app installed, you get a giant bubble that you can't ignore for every message. FB wants to be the messenger that people respond to immediately.
For me, I actually like the messenger bubble UI, and love that it's not built as a gateway to the massive time sink of the rest of Facebook. But I think it's clear that omnipresence is the goal here, and we have no reason to believe that it won't become a funnel to the rest of Facebook in the future.
But it also has Identity, Contacts, SMS, Phone, and a host of others. Do not want.
They just simply decided one day, oh hey let's redirect the messages page on the Facebook app to a static page saying "download messenger" and not give any access to the messages, including view-access. Even when you get a notification on your phone about a new message.
At least, since they're closing access from alternative sources, they're slowly succeeding in driving me off facebook. At least if I now have to move to an app, I'll pick one that supports end-to-end encryption (which facebook+xmpp+otr did fine, btw, until they killed it).
I wonder how quickly things will turn in the coming decades, as the incumbent network silos continue to screw users on the altar of data mining and ad revenue, and anyone can start a competing product for free (up to ~thousands of users at least, and at that point, maybe you can find a monetization strategy or get investment to keep going until your product becomes another "big thing").
As far as I can gather, XMPP is pretty much a dead end at this point, Google Wave is open, but also dead as a spec. So what'll presumably happen, is that eventually someone will find a new, sane, extensible and open protocol, and it will take over. We now know some things that other protocols were missing: easy serialization, sane hypermedia, sane extensions, sane push, sane presence, sane async and sync modes (mail and im w/server side archiving) end to end encryption, and some form of trust or other way to mitigate spam. I'm guessing it'll be json based with perhaps swappable transport. Probably should be encapsulated in message-level authenticated encryption. And it'll probably be another five years before we see it realized.
I am an occasional user of Facebook Messenger, and using the mobile website was perfect: I don't care if notifications are delayed or even lost (I'll see the messages eventually anyway). But there's no way I'm going to install a separate app for something I use maybe once a week, tops.
If it stops working from the mobile website, then I just wait until I'm back at my computer to read fb messenges.
I work for a living and carry a work phone that is managed due to compliance requirements. I could pop on Facebook and check the occasional message. Facebook makes the mobile web experience as user hostile as possible, but it's sort of works. Now I'm stuck, as are about 20,000 of my coworkers.
Says you. I'm perfectly happy not knowing about my FB messages until I go look for them. I DON'T WANT them pushed to me. If they want to send me something that needs to be read quickly, use email. Or gasp phone/text/whatsapp (I use the latter begrudgingly because whatsapp has pretty much replaced texting in lots of Europe).
Except native apps aren't the future :/
I've never had a Facebook app on any of my phones and I will never install one.
Worth pointing out: Luckily, my phone came without Facebook apps preinstalled, so I had the choice of seeing what Facebook wants to access. Other people don't even have that chance since it comes preinstalled in most of the cases.
This does not change my mind about banning all Facebook apps from my devices, it just means even less Facebook for me.
[0] http://www.cnet.com/how-to/facebook-changed-your-e-mail-addr...!
They changed it on FB, not in people’s phones.
Doesn't seem to work on mobile tho
Did you try the Android "Request Desktop Site" checkbox?
Edit: just saw that Zem says that works: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11835060
Edit 2: Jeswin says it isn't useable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11834996
And on my old phone (a venerable HTC Desire HD), Facebook's decision to make me install Messenger in addition to the regular app some time ago was the turning point from low latency and good user experience to overall lag in the phone.
If you're serious about this, you're going to also want to remove any non-FB contact information for users (email, phone number) that might be displayed, because I guarantee you that rather than installing Messenger that's what I'm going to use if you let me.
And really, if you're going to be so blatantly user hostile, it makes sense to really be thorough about it.
For instance businesses need to start evaluating if they really require a Facebook presence. The users that can reach you on Facebook are obnoxious, and expects 24/7 feedback. Unless you are a small niche business you're simply not able to build sufficient community around your Facebook page for it to help further your business. For medium and large companies Facebook is just a place for customers to complain and win prices.
As the company I work for has expanded and become less and less niche we seeing decreasing user engagement from our customers on Facebook, unless they can win a price. At this point marketing really should evaluate the continued need for maintaining a Facebook page, it's just becoming a third support channel, but one where peoples expectations are simply to high, in terms of response time.
Honestly, why is companies like Coca Cola or Volvo on Facebook, it make zero sense when you think about it.
There was a period about 5 years ago when every company in the world thought they needed to have Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on. It was a serious case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) as opposed to a genuine business case for social media.
I suspect we're going to see small and medium companies take a view that maintaining a presence on social media is still not generating ROI. As a result they'll consolidate to fewer social media platforms and perhaps at some point none at all.
If SMEs (or SMBs as they're known in the US) take this approach, big companies will slowly follow I'm sure.
The "social network" generation is maturing enough to know better than using social networks, and the new generation considers them lame and apparently prefer more discreet methods of communication and socializing.
FB(the platform), Twitter and the rest, are slowly finding their place as news aggregators and celebrity/corp point of presence.
As for FB, the company, I just hope they keep giving us amazing tools like RocksDB and React.
The last time that happened was when the users were the customers. But users don't want to pay for anything anymore.
FB is the Great Mall of the Internet, people don't really care if it sucks because it's just a place where people are. Many don't even have a concept of websites sucking.
Sounds like you have a bad case of "back in my day"-itis.
I could not find the log out button in iOS Messenger, and the only way to do that seems to be logging in to fb.com and hitting a button there which will deactivate your phone session.
I once had a (protracted) debate with one of their earliest product designers who defended the decision unconditionally. His arguments were—more or less—"it's better for the user". If instead it was simply "it's going to improve our bottom line" I'd not have given much of a second thought. It's just changes like this that they attempt to spin as positive to their users that drive me crazy.
ETA: found the convo from August 2014 and pasted below. Note this is when they first disabled within the app (and you could start the download to trick it into letting you continue).
> Me: Jared, i get that they want to encourage adoption of the standalone app -- probably for some business purpose, now that they're publicly traded -- but why cripple existing functionality just to obtain that goal? make it annoying so that you have to dismiss the "upgrade" comment .. fine. the only reason i can see is profit, which is fine/just own it, but people are masquerading this as a good product decision for users which i disagree with (obviously).
> Jared: A force is rarely a good product decision. That engenders distrust, and certainly they did not predict the frustration that would occur.
I whole heartedly believe the standalone application is better.
I believe Facebook took a calculated risk, but not a disingenuous one, and not one targeted at making money, one of the form of 'you won't know how to fly unless I push you out of the nest and then, woah, how much you'll thank me' and their convictions, which were backed by engagement data, were unable to actually test the event of "forcing the change". The reaons I belive they took the risk were to minimize ongoing development of a duplicative codebase and achieve engineering focus.
Now, with similar information to Facebook, I ask myself what would I do - would I recall the change with a more transitional approach (e.g. 60 days until install)? Or your friend sent you a sticker / selfie / audio file, to view use the new messenger app? It's a tough question and I pose it back to you, what would you do?
So maybe the standalone app is actually NOT better for the user. :)
I'm curious what people prefer about the web chat version?
Did anyone really think that would be used for a good purpose, instead of just rampantly abused?
I don't want any Facebook apps on my phone due to privacy and tracking reasons, and so I used the web view (with an app wrapper like Tinfoil with location disabled), now I won't be able to send messages any longer.
Guess I won't be using Messenger any longer.
Facebook as "facebook" is useful and fun, and a way to connect with people and share stuff. Facebook as "messenger" is phone service. It's infrastructure that's part of your life. It's part of direct human contact. It's way too risky to trust to an entity like Facebook (or Google).
If these companies had "invented" email, we'd been set back decades. Just look at how badly MS manages to preform as a netcitizen with Exchange and Outlook (for no good technical reason). Without the network effect and competition that the open email standards push, we'd all be faxing print-outs between hobbled messaging silos.
I mean, we're still using SMS. SMS! Because the big boys couldn't agree to just have user@facebook talk to user@outlook and user@google or user@apple in a sane way! Both FB and Google even had XMPP going for a while, but didn't even federate with each other. It's as if Gmail suddenly stopped accepting external mail (not that their magic black holing isn't annoying enough to work around as it is).
* It takes up zero phone memory. Yes, this is still an issue on really cheap Android phones. [0]
* It takes up zero phone resources, unlike the Facebook app, which is known for slowing down your entire phone. [1]
* The messenger app wants to send me notifications about stupid things and collect personal data using its over-broad permissions. I don't trust Facebook, and I'm not a tinfoil hat type.
* I don't want another chat ecosystem in my life, but if someone does message me on Facebook, I'd like to be able to see it on my phone without having to install an idiotic, resource-sapping, spyware app.
I really, really don't want a "good" Facebook chat solution. People want to chat with me, they can use Skype, Google Hangouts, or Slack. Or just send me an email and we can talk on the phone.
[0] http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_core_prime-6716.php
Perhaps because the web version is not limited to the proprietary runtime of a single operating system.
Facebook can sync with your contacts and make a huge jumbled mess
Facebook app drains battery
Facebook app demands elevated privileges that it shouldn't need
Facebook may or may not be listening to your microphone
Hah, if only it were that easy. When viewing messages in Chrome for Android, I get redirected to Messenger on the Play Store when I close the overlay. Then the Play Store opens again when I tap on a conversation.
Screw you, Facebook.
To quote Mel Brooks' brilliant "History of the World, Part I" - "It's good to be the king".
Screw you Facebook.
I don't think that either is true so I guess they just want to sniff around my phone. Sorry fb, not today.
So if you spoof your UA string, it may stop bugging you and let you use messenger as usual.
Would you mind sharing with the class what that particular UA is?
If there was a higher class crowd on FB I would probably use it more but for me it ended up being a bunch of people from my hometown / high school who are angry, usually at other ethnic groups and don't seem wildly successful in their own right.
If I do want to login, I just wait until I'm at a computer. The standalone Messenger app is horrible for permissions and should be avoided at all costs. If you can muster the strength to delete FB, even better. I'm able to very easily not feel tempted to login to that cesspool so I haven't needed to delete mine.
Most of the time, if someone complains about "stupid discussions/content" or anything alike, I feel that facebook just isn't used in its full potential.
I unfollowed/unfriended/blocked all the connections to people who produce content which isn't enriching my browsing experience. As a result I follow around 10% of my facebook friends, which is a set of about 200 connections with (mostly) valuable content.
This seems like either a made up scenario or you have weird friends. Who would keep calling someone to 'mess with them'???
Not at all a spiteful/angry decision, just more of a "well, if I have to go out to another app to do this shit, I might as well just use this thing that works with all my friends including the increasing number of them that don't ever login to Facebook anymore".
This isn't to say that removing the web functionality isn't a dick move and fairly user-hostile, but I don't really understand why so many people act like Messenger.app is an affront to god and man.
Just drop Fbook guys - trust me, you'll be fine without it. If someone really wants to talk to you they'll get your email or phone number through a mutual friend/family member.
So this change will make it even harder for me to access FB messaging. Buuh.
Also, I haven't tried it with FB, but a lot of apps actually fail or don't work properly if you don't give them all of the permissions they require.
Problem solver for Android. Available via fdroid.I use Tinfoil for Facebook and this compliments it nicely.
When I am running low on space on my phone, those apps the the first to get deleted Facebook and Messengae first, of course!. Facebook caches their data and at one point it was at 700mb...with no way to clear the data except for deleting the app and reinstalling.
FB iOS apps were resource pigs and data whores. Neither installed.
Maybe I'll just vnc in to a browser on the home machine when I need to message.
Otherwise, iMessage it is.
Facebook has hinted they are rolling that out and it will create all kinds of frustration for mobile web users.
So far, so good! I InApp'd a month, but will likely get a year's worth at renewal.
The trend is alarming though and just fortifies my perception of Facebook further. They're trying to make their cust..uh, I mean, products, behave the way they want instead of listening to what people want and how they want it. That's a classic bad move from any company. Since this is HN, wasn't success supposed to have a high correlation with "Make something people want" ?
Facebook's leverage is mostly based on their user base. As soon as there's at least one commonly used social network where I can find most of my friends, bye bye Facebook. That is a ridiculously hard problem to solve and Facebook know that. At the same time they're just using more and more of that leverage by trying to force things down on people's throats instead of adding to the pile of reasons why people would want to use Facebook. This makes it imperative that once something else, something even moderately bearable that is not Facebook, becomes available then people will be fleeing in masses.
I was a very active facebook user for a long time and never imagined that I could stop using it, having so many of my relationships hosted in there. But honestly it all went so strange. 90% of the FB notifications are spam. The very good inapp chat was replaced by a worse extra app and now they enforce it everywhere. In the end I just deactivated notifications for all of that. Byebye, social network.
For years I have to used the app or messenger. If needed I only ever access the website. If they take the messaging functionality away I will even use it less. Or leave it all behind.
The other issue is the size of the app. I realize that most people don't have this issue, but on the lower end phones adding another 36mb app means loosing another. And given history that 36mb app is likely to be 80 by the end of the year.
It's about drawing a line. I drew that line two years ago, and not once have I looked back or otherwise felt any semblance of regret or frustration from it. Among SMS, email, Telegram, Google+/Hangouts, ordinary phone calls, snail mail, in-person, and the cornucopia of other communications options out there, there's zero reason to put up with Facebook's nonsense.
I wish to be able to host purple-facebook on a server and throw a web UI in front of it. It won't be as complete as messenger, but at least basic chat will work without having to download a sneaky app.
- press the chat icon
- wait for Google Play to open
- switch back to your browser
- press the "X" on the "Your conversations are moved to Messanger" dialog
- select the person you want to chat with
- wait for Google Play to open again
- switch back to your browser
Proof that it works: http://i.imgur.com/29BoF8V.png
Click chat icon. Profit
I've been using Tinfoil for Facebook for a good while now, since my old phone is just incapable of handling their applications. I guess it's time to just delete my profile for good.
- Enable Notifications
- Enable access to my Contacts
- Add my phone number to my FB account
I respectfully refused to allow any of this. Every time that I opened the Messenger app, I got a pop-up asking me to enable Notifications. I enabled notifications, then went into my iOS settings and disabled them. This stopped the pop-ups, but now I see a red warning symbol on my Messenger "Me" icon in the lower right which wants me to enable Notifications once and for all. I also see another red icon on the People icon which says that I need to sync my contacts.
I'm disappointed in the direction that Facebook is turning the Messenger app towards. They seem to be desperate for these three options to be enabled.
(Not that it’s that convenient… Gotta say though, impressed with both FB being able to work in w3m, and with w3m being able to handle FB.)
I'm not going to install Facebook messenger, it east battery and reports my location when I don't want it to. So if they kludge the desktop site so that it doesn't work on Android Chrome, I'll just not use Facebook messaging. Facebook should at least add an auto-reply function to tell anyone who tries to message me that "please send email to xxx instead".
Not in this case. Here we have a company that has incentives to cripple its product and services, taking away from many customers features they clearly use and want, and giving them something else they clearly don't want, so the company can earn more.
Too bad that what people want is to just turn off their brain.
- you can't disable notifications - you can't secure your app (aka Pin protection or a password) - huge battery drain as it is constantly connected to the internet.
The web app is easy. You log in and you check your messages. An alternative for android that I have found for Android is called fast Facebook. It shows a web view of the chat and ignores the market:// redirects. Which is already better.
You absolutely can mute conversations, tap the (i) at the top of each convo, very first menu option should be "Notifications".
With you on everything else.
I tried it with tinfoil for facebook and it seems to work well.
It also states that what crashes the tinfoil-app is a call to launch Messenger.
It will probably be the latter.
(Written via my Blackberry)
Are Google and Facebook doing the same thing with home screens? Is that why they're smashing their big apps into little ones?
http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/03/facebook-is-disabling-messa...
Really, really, really annoying.
So I've just started requesting the desktop site on my mobile browser.
So when choosing between a lot of bad and propietary options for chat, fb messaging was best.
Except you can't and shouldn't trust FB to make client software; they take to many permissions, they might mess with your (contact) data - the apps have an inflated sense of urgency (hangouts is guilty of this too). And they are resource hungry.
And as fb chat is generally (for me) somewhat asynchronous, the web client was perfect: I could see if there were any new messages, and if there were any new notifications at the same time.
Moving this to one platform, for me, kills the product. At least on mobile. And if I can't use it on mobile, I'll probably slowly stop using it altogether.
For me it's mainly bad, because I see no clear alternative. Facebook was the one silo I could reliably reach most acquaintances. I'm not on snapchat, but even if I was, there are people I might occasionally reach out to on fb, that I probably won't contact/be contacted by on snapchat. Google social efforts is a joke, and many people don't really use email for personal communication.
I only check FB about once a week and use Messenger daily with friends that live or travel internationally.
The Facebook platform is one giant, dark pattern.
Here's hoping the community wins.
Why we need to continue fostering alternatives. Diversity and competition, to keep things a little more honest.
I'm guessing a native app enables a lot more on that front in some regard than web, or perhaps provides a moat.
Honestly, I just use Messenger without Facebok, since the IM part is the only thing I'd need on the road.
It was really annoying that there's some holdouts where voice chat doesn't work (has anyone noticed how much better the quality of voice chat over FB messenger or iMessage is, vs phone calls). Or where they didn't get my messages because they didn't have notificartions set up for FB messenger.
Glad they're fixing this (and I might be the only person on HN who is :))
I don't know what this obsession with native applications is. A lot of the time I prefer to just use your website.
No problem. It's not there's conversations with dead people in there or anything.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike the move, but this isn't one.
Native apps are really becoming dominant over mobile web apps.
All the reason I need to drop Facebook entirely then.
It'd be a good time for Duck Duck Go to revive it's XMPP server, and give it some polish, IMNHO.
It improves on what is already built into your phone because it hooks into all of your facebook contacts, which means full names, and pictures.
Virtually everyone here complains "Facebook does XYZ really bad but I still use them because all my friends are there".
I have a solution. Why don't you get all your friends off there? Pick a platform that you really like and start evangelising. The only reason why Facebook has as much power as it does is because of user lock-in, but that use lock-in is only strong because no one fights it actively.
Example. A while ago, WhatsApp didn't have a webapp. Telegram did. I prefer typing on my laptop instead of mobile if I can. Therefore, I started evangelising from WhatsApp to Telegram. Now all my friends are on Telegram. (They didn't leave WhatsApp, but now they use Telegram between them). (BTW, I kind of regret this now that WhatsApp has a webapp AND encryption by default, but that's another story).
So, stop complaining and do something about it.
Because besides incredibly few exceptions no one uses another Smartphone App for me, no one wants to have an explanation how IRC works, and E-Mails seem to be good for everything but writing to me.
No one will change their behaviour in any regard just for me. Maybe because I am not one trying to force something down other people's throats, that's not my style. Maybe you were one of those hardcore social media users people couldn't live without, but for the occasional twice a month conversation online and the 1 like a week, I won't be missed nearly enough.
And this is also the sentiment I have received multiple times from others who have abandoned social media at some point. So I strongly suspect your case is an exception and not the norm, and maybe you are portraying it as a little bit easier and positive than it was or is.
I'm using Telegram a lot lately (although it was more about other people bringing me in rather than me bringing them over) and I still wouldn't switch to WhatsApp now. The webapp requires your phone to be turned on and connected (as it acts as some sort of bridge or something?) unlike Telegram which "just works" once you give permission.
Plus I find the whole infrastructure to be much nicer for group chats (with nice things like bots that are quite useful).
While I don't disagree with your goals, it's not just moving your friends and family off Facebook. It's also moving their friends and family off as well. And all the groups they are associated with, and the people they interact with.
You cannot just move a large group of people to another platform if you don't have any authority over them (e.g. their boss) unless they want to switch on their own (because their previous method is too unreliable, inconvenient or expensive).
I, for one, would be happy if I can make my teacher believe that WhatsApp is not a good idea to contact me for various things regarding my final exam. The best way to reach me is always through email.
A far better approach would be to create a tool/alternative platform that allows people to interact with Facebook and their Facebook friends, without directly using the app. It might be a bit of an arms race with Facebook if the tool is scraping the site, but there isn't a lot they can do to stop it if a lot of the users are using a Chrome extension or various other client side tools.
That means that people that come to your tool/app/page are not stuck interacting with only those other users who have left Facebook. Which of course would be terrible, except for tiny little pockets of people here and there who only interact with one another and all have the same concerns about Facebook. (maybe the OP belongs to such a group...but I've never known anyone like that)
If you were to build this, you wouldn't have the immense disadvantage of having a tiny network to begin with. Eventually, as more as more people join you, you can tweak your strategy, when you are no longer such an underdog. Obviously, such a system would have to be open source, and open to all the "alternative platforms" as well. Maybe to participate people have a choice of a paying a small subscription or viewing "nice" ads, or maybe none of the above if enough of their contributing friends approve them. Or something. Maybe it would be a WeFunder project. All options should be considered.
I'd suggest anyone thinking about this first do some reading on Game Theory, Tragedy of the Commons, etc. Don't design something that expects everyone to individually do something that is against their interest, or you WILL fail.
Some people just like complaining.
Really people should complain about Twitter's inability to innovate at all. They were the one Western Social Network capable of taking FB on, and yet it's basically the same thing it was 5 years ago. I use Twitter a lot too, but I wish for what it could be.
Therefore, I started evangelising from WhatsApp to Telegram
Telegram is also a close silo. Tell your friend to use programs that use an open protocol like XMPP [1].
Please read [1]
That is a bit naive. If you have friends from different backgrounds and periods of your live with different interests than yourself, i can tell you that most of them could care less than to change the messenger of choice because someone likes a different messenger more for reasons they don't care about.
Result: more free time to do interesting and productive things and people aren't bothering me as much. I have taken control of my life and I'm not being pushed around to do things based on notifications or desire for artificial status(likes, retweet, stars). Stop using these services that sell your privacy, control your communication, make hostile changes and in the end do not care about you.
As a side note, my company recently had a meeting with execs of our national branch of facebook, and after that meeting about 50% of our execs went and deleted their account...
The whole point of Messenger is to consolidate messaging infrastructure. Being able to glean customer interests from that is just a bonus. Mobile web app is horrendous, and they know it, this is the solution.
I agree that Facebook lacks that trust with people, but they have every right to try and make their platform better and more efficient, and don't necessarily deserve the knee-jerk "they're up to something!" like this.
I'm totally happy with the web FB.
And, maybe I'm wrong, but it appears like the FB app using a crap-tonne of data in comparison with web.
Side benefit: FB app not following me around like a stalker.
- Force people to download Facebook Messenger
- ???
- Profit?!
That is the only reason I use Facebook messaging (I communicate with friends using other services) and one of the few reasons I still have a Facebook account.
Installing Facebook messenger app is too much just for this.