Facebook's plan: One messaging service to rule them all by Scott Rosenberg & David McCabe

I commented on Facebook's plans to unify messaging across their platform earlier today. Axios nail it (emphasis mine):

It will bring together users of all three apps in a single network, database and community — enabling new features and opening the door to even more anticompetitive challenges, privacy troubles and social conflicts.

It's clear there is a bigger plan in play here and perhaps it's as obvious as bringing things closer together in order to prevent them being broken up, but it feels like more of a lack of understanding.

When Facebook acquired Instagram (2012) and WhatsApp (2014), it said it would keep both services running separately under their original leadership. But the founders of both companies departed last year.

With no leaders from their pre-acquisition eras, the question is when rather than if or even how.

Facebook is committed to users' having a single "real-world" identity.

It's very easy to forget this aspect of Facebook but one of the reasons I do not allow any social media buttons on my websites. A link is all you need.


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