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Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

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Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#6

Post by wwweston »

Just an FYI for any Facebook product geniuses who might be reading this thread:

If you're serious about this, you're going to also want to remove any non-FB contact information for users (email, phone number) that might be displayed, because I guarantee you that rather than installing Messenger that's what I'm going to use if you let me.

And really, if you're going to be so blatantly user hostile, it makes sense to really be thorough about it.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#7

Post by cypher543 »

> At the moment, you can just dismiss the notice and go about your business.

Hah, if only it were that easy. When viewing messages in Chrome for Android, I get redirected to Messenger on the Play Store when I close the overlay. Then the Play Store opens again when I tap on a conversation.

Screw you, Facebook.

Re: Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger

#9

Post by prdonahue »

Facebook's forced migration of their users from basic, functional chat is, in my opinion, more frustrating than any single decision they've made to date (perhaps second to platform risk materializing to those businesses built on top of them).

I once had a (protracted) debate with one of their earliest product designers who defended the decision unconditionally. His arguments were—more or less—"it's better for the user". If instead it was simply "it's going to improve our bottom line" I'd not have given much of a second thought. It's just changes like this that they attempt to spin as positive to their users that drive me crazy.

ETA: found the convo from August 2014 and pasted below. Note this is when they first disabled within the app (and you could start the download to trick it into letting you continue).

> Me: Jared, i get that they want to encourage adoption of the standalone app -- probably for some business purpose, now that they're publicly traded -- but why cripple existing functionality just to obtain that goal? make it annoying so that you have to dismiss the "upgrade" comment .. fine. the only reason i can see is profit, which is fine/just own it, but people are masquerading this as a good product decision for users which i disagree with (obviously).

> Jared: A force is rarely a good product decision. That engenders distrust, and certainly they did not predict the frustration that would occur.

I whole heartedly believe the standalone application is better.

I believe Facebook took a calculated risk, but not a disingenuous one, and not one targeted at making money, one of the form of 'you won't know how to fly unless I push you out of the nest and then, woah, how much you'll thank me' and their convictions, which were backed by engagement data, were unable to actually test the event of "forcing the change". The reaons I belive they took the risk were to minimize ongoing development of a duplicative codebase and achieve engineering focus.

Now, with similar information to Facebook, I ask myself what would I do - would I recall the change with a more transitional approach (e.g. 60 days until install)? Or your friend sent you a sticker / selfie / audio file, to view use the new messenger app? It's a tough question and I pose it back to you, what would you do?

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