This is less about THE future of FB rather than a bet on ONE possible outcome - transaction monetization on a many-to-many network, vs continued growth of their

This is less about THE future of FB rather than a bet on ONE possible outcome - transaction monetization on a many-to-many network, vs continued growth of their highly targeted advertising product. On the internet just like in real life, someone has to be selling something to somebody. When you're a "free" service (e.g. your users are your product), you can either facilitate transactions and take a cut (e.g. payments, in-app upgrades/stickers/etc), or you can direct the user firehose to someone (advertising, B2B services, data, etc). Facebook has predominantly been successful up until now doing the latter. Messenger is a both a hedge against declining app/website engagement numbers and continued bottoming out of CPM/CPC for digital ads, as well as a bet on a Westernized version of WeChat and LINE have done, particularly in payments.