Mark Zuckerberg Explains Why Facebook Forced Users To Download Messenger

Earlier this year, Facebook made a somewhat controversial decision when they removed the messaging feature from the Facebook app. Instead users who wanted to chat with Facebook friends had to download the Messenger app. For those who already had the app, this was not a big deal, but for those who didn’t, safe to say many kicked up quite a fuss about it.

Speaking at a live Q&A session today, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally offered an explanation as to why they made that somewhat controversial decision. Zuckberberg acknowledged that asking their customers to download a new app is a big deal. “Asking everyone in our community to install a new app is a big ask. I appreciate that that was work and required friction.”

However as to the reason he felt it was necessary, “We wanted to do this because we believe that this is a better experience. Messaging is becoming increasingly important. On mobile, each app can only focus on doing one thing well, we think.” He also spoke about dedicated messaging apps being faster. “These apps that are fast and just focused on messaging. You’re probably messaging people 15 times per day. Having to go into an app and take a bunch of steps to get to messaging is a lot of friction.”

That being said chances are everyone who needs to message friends on Facebook has probably downloaded the app by now. Some might still be unhappy about it but it looks like they had no choice, but what do you guys think? Do you agree with Zuckerberg’s reasoning?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Apps, Facebook, Social Hit