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a) Users in developing countries want, even need, messaging apps without the bandwidth costs of a full social networking app. This isn't a Facebook "stunt", but

a) Users in developing countries want, even need, messaging apps without the bandwidth costs of a full social networking app. This isn't a Facebook "stunt", but rather the reality of trying to acquire users in countries without 3g/4g/wifi bandwidth at affordable costs for consumers. "Facebook Social Network" cannot compete with "WhatsApp" or similar in poor countries, but "Facebook Messenger" can. It's really not a hard concept to understand, unless one is so unaware of how lucky one is to live in a first world country with a steady income. b) It's funny how the HN crowd spins the separation of the messaging component from the rest of the product as a bad thing. When it comes to Unix, we repeatedly hear about how having separate smaller utilities to accomplish different tasks is the only right way to do things. But a company who splits their essential messaging component from the extremely heavy, unnecessary, optional, nice-to-have addons like a "wall" is somehow evil. A "messaging app" is a very tiny fraction of the functionality found in a "social networking app". It's extremely sensible to separate them. How anyone can even pretend to attribute this to some nefarious motive is beyond me. And hell, I'm an anti-Facebook nut.

fit2rule 10y ago
If Facebook Messenger only functioned as a way of sending and receiving Facebook messages to ones friends, your position would be justified. But in fact Messenger is a trojan horse app which spies on users and gathers much information about the systems its installed on, without user oversight, in order for Facebook to better profile its users. Fact: Messenger isn't a messaging app. It masquerades as one, because in reality its a user-profiling app, designed to serve one master, and one master only: Facebook. Not its users.
- developer2 10y ago
  This has nothing to do with the separation of the Messenger app from the core Facebook app. When messaging was packaged as part of the core Facebook app, the functionality was the same. There is nothing Facebook can do with two separate apps that they couldn't have done with a single app. You can't tell me that "Facebook Messenger spies", but that "combined Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps wouldn't spy". And to be clear, "spying" simply means granting the app those privileges. You could complain about Apple's or Android's approaches to approving individual privileges, but it's not like Facebook is doing anything super illegitimate that users haven't had to permit - even if the reason for granting those privileges isn't fully disclosed.
  - fit2rule 10y ago
    Messenger was broken away from the main Facebook app because it was the principle use case for Facebook users - messaging - and by splitting the function off, Facebook was able to be even more intrusive, since the assumption is that "its just a messaging app, it doesn't do anything more than that like the main app" - whereas, it actually does a lot more than that behind the scenes in order to gain access to data that Facebook wants to know about you.. such as listening on the microphone to gain clues about where you are, who you are with, and what you are doing. >App privileges Sure, just like the NSA isn't spying, since it has permission from Congress. You won't ever know what it does with the data - because of course, those rights are privileges and not granted to you, the individual - but it doesn't make the net result any better for those of us who care about privacy and controlling our own lives, un-hindered by corporate policies requiring the mass usurpation of our individual rights.
kakarot 10y ago
Because that's all just one of the reasons they're doing it. There are huge strategic advantages to adapting the modern third world citizen to Facebook being their only point of access for the internet, like enticing them to use the full product.

fit2rule 10y ago

If Facebook Messenger only functioned as a way of sending and receiving Facebook messages to ones friends, your position would be justified. But in fact Messenger is a trojan horse app which spies on users and gathers much information about the systems its installed on, without user oversight, in order for Facebook to better profile its users. Fact: Messenger isn't a messaging app. It masquerades as one, because in reality its a user-profiling app, designed to serve one master, and one master only: Facebook. Not its users.

developer2 10y ago
This has nothing to do with the separation of the Messenger app from the core Facebook app. When messaging was packaged as part of the core Facebook app, the functionality was the same. There is nothing Facebook can do with two separate apps that they couldn't have done with a single app. You can't tell me that "Facebook Messenger spies", but that "combined Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps wouldn't spy". And to be clear, "spying" simply means granting the app those privileges. You could complain about Apple's or Android's approaches to approving individual privileges, but it's not like Facebook is doing anything super illegitimate that users haven't had to permit - even if the reason for granting those privileges isn't fully disclosed.
- fit2rule 10y ago
  Messenger was broken away from the main Facebook app because it was the principle use case for Facebook users - messaging - and by splitting the function off, Facebook was able to be even more intrusive, since the assumption is that "its just a messaging app, it doesn't do anything more than that like the main app" - whereas, it actually does a lot more than that behind the scenes in order to gain access to data that Facebook wants to know about you.. such as listening on the microphone to gain clues about where you are, who you are with, and what you are doing. >App privileges Sure, just like the NSA isn't spying, since it has permission from Congress. You won't ever know what it does with the data - because of course, those rights are privileges and not granted to you, the individual - but it doesn't make the net result any better for those of us who care about privacy and controlling our own lives, un-hindered by corporate policies requiring the mass usurpation of our individual rights.

kakarot 10y ago

Because that's all just one of the reasons they're doing it. There are huge strategic advantages to adapting the modern third world citizen to Facebook being their only point of access for the internet, like enticing them to use the full product.