[tejaswiy]

Oh man ignoring the privacy implications of this, all the "product" people at Facebook are going to destroy WhatsApp as we know and love. It is going to become a giant monstrosity with a 500MB binary size, lag, whole bunch of tracking code and super slow servers. It has begun to a certain extent already and it's only going get worse.

I assume they think that the network effect is going to lock users into WhatsApp but the moment it becomes too painful to run on a 100$ Android phone with 1GB of RAM, it will inevitably die. Sure it's not going to be instantaneous but I'm a 100% sure that all the PMs that run Facebook Messenger are itching to get their hands on WhatsApp.

I understand these changes are only on the server side, but I imagine the client side is not too far away. Some client changes are inevitable because I'm pretty sure they'll build a "unified" API for all these apps and it's is going to contain a whole bunch of messenger service code (because look at all those messenger features that noone cares about, surely we can't just drop what a whole org has been working on for two years)

[wtmt]

> all the "product" people at Facebook are going to destroy WhatsApp as we know and love.

Well, let it just die quickly! There's not much to love in products from a company that's repeatedly so hostile to its users. I'm all for anything from Facebook dying sooner, and will be cheering when that happens.

[Stubb]

You don't trust Zuckerberg to keep your private messages private? Even if that somehow happens, he'll be selling your messaging network info to everyone with two nickels to rub together.

No thanks. Delete Messenger/WhatsApp and move everything onto other services.

[malloreon]

you have to delete instagram too

[reitanqild]

Nobody ever accused me of being a Facebook shill, I'm happy to say I've helped a number of people off WhatsApp after Facebook bought them.

But let's keep this serious: Instagram isn't a tool for secure messaging. It is a tool to publish images, mostly public images.

A person might very well decide to move sensitive communication off Instagram and continue to post their cat videos on Instagram.

A valid reason for not using Instagram however is to lead by example and weaken the network effect of Facebook.

Facebook is already in panic because users are leaving the platform so IMO now is a good time to test out alternative solutions :-)

[Stubb]

This is precisely while I'm on instagram: There's no pretense of anything being private. It's like the best parts of Facebook (cool pictures/info from people who interest me) without the bullshit (TDS-fueled ramblings).

I'll be out of there as soon as a federated alternative pops up and gets the least bit of traction.

[alekseypo]

Already gone... it stopped being enjoyable years ago.

[pmlnr]

> Facebook are going to destroy WhatsApp as we know and love

Was this ever a question? Seriously.

[bichiliad]

Seconding this; The article's talking about a consolidation of the messaging infrastructure, not the product experience. In theory, this could be done with super minor changes to the product code, and in practice, there's nothing stopping Facebook from making arbitrary product changes to WhatsApp anyways.

[gordon_freeman]

The article said to allow users to easily message cross-app. That change to me looks like on the front-end product side.

[johannes1234321]

There is not only that social form of "network effect" keeping in, but also the "free basics" network effect. I noticed that while travelling Asia: In many areas you got Facebook's limited form of free internet, where Facebook's services can be used even without money in the prepaid card. Thus WhatsApp is the central communication channel. Many shops, taxi/tuktuk drivers, guesthouse owners etc. use it as primary communication channel to make reservations etc. That lock in is strong. (One has to see how Facebook will monetize this, but we'll internet==free basics==Facebook+WhatsApp gives them a strong advantage.

[Theodores]

I note this story is the top read item on the BBC news right now, clearly people do care quite a bit.

The web has evolved with messaging APIs and server side push notification things, how easy is it to put together a group chat for just your family these days? The wider friend-verse can stay on these common platforms but the inner circle can be kept off servers and so long as someone in the group has the messages then a complete transcript can be had?

I don't believe it can be that hard. Facebook has become a behemoth and you don't need all that to just share messages within a small family sized group. Whilst Facebook merge their triplet of behemoth apps I am sure it can be possible to put something together that just works for the inner friend/family group everyone has, a little advert free zone that just does text and phone recorded media. Can it be done utterly serverless or is this something the blockchain crowd have solved already for me to have dismissed as snakeoil?

[eitland]

> I am sure it can be possible to put something together that just works for the inner friend/family group everyone has, a little advert free zone that just does text and phone recorded media.

I've been researching this lately and I'm about to test out private (but possibly federated) instances of hubzilla and nextcloud as soon as I can get some time.

Both looks extremely promising although I know there are issues.

[Theodores]

So we are still in roll your own code mode really. I can't get my dad to 'just download this' yet. That is why WhatsApp et al. are 'so good'.