For me, it's not about the direct messaging - it's the feed. Someone on the other side of the world posts a photo of something they've been doing, I comment on

For me, it's not about the direct messaging - it's the feed. Someone on the other side of the world posts a photo of something they've been doing, I comment on it and we have a conversation. For this to happen without the likes of Facebook, they would have to explicitly share that photo with me, something that may or may not be likely depending upon what the photo is about, what their perception of my interests are and whether they think I want to be bothered with it.