I want to note that KakaoTalk [0], which is the de-facto messenger service of Korea, is exactly going this route. Although having a straightforward monopoly on

I want to note that KakaoTalk [0], which is the de-facto messenger service of Korea, is exactly going this route. Although having a straightforward monopoly on messenger services in the country, it has failed to find a sustainable business model in the past. However, five years ago they launched a service called KakaoPay [1], which lets you send money across KakaoTalk friends right in the app. And quite recently it launched its own bank called KakaoBank [2], and is nowadays even issuing debit cards. I expect many social network companies to move in similar directions; once you have a monopoly on communications, network effects are too strong to ignore. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoTalk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoTalk [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoPay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoPay [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoBank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KakaoBank