Great writeup.

It’s gutsy — maybe even suicidal in most cases — to remove a (beloved!) feature from a core app, and force users to download another app. But FB engineered Messenger so well, designed it with such grace, and has continued to add such good features (I do voice calls in Messenger daily), that anyone rational can’t help but think: Yep, it’s better not sandwiched into the FB core.

I do think they could have kept the barebones back-and-forth messages in the core app, but when you have a grander vision for something, sometimes the drastic choice is the better choice.

In spite of the backlast, it felt like the right decision from the onset. Good to see it backed up by numbers.