Facebook disabling messaging in its mobile web app to push people to Messenger - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/03/facebook-is-disabling-messaging-in-its-mobile-web-app-to-push-people-to-messenger/ <comment><USER3> This is kind of convenient; it gives me one more excuse not to use facebook. A few days ago I got the usual notification email that somebody had sent me a message on FB. Clicking is a low barrier so I clicked, curiously. Then I instead got the "No, now you have to install Messenger app" screen. That was enough of a barrier that I said "oh forget it, who cares, anybody who knows me would know better than to send me an FB message anyway, if it matters they'll get in touch via a 'real' communications medium like email, text, or phone"

So sending me an FB message is now a black hole and I'm fine with that. FB's decision just pushed me and all other similar users (users that already are on the fringes of FB usage, using it only rarely) even further away.

I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or good thing for them, since honestly I don't know what FB could do alternately to win back people in my "barely use FB" demographic, and from comments here it does seem like people who actually use FB regularly did not share my reaction ("screw it then") and instead felt forced to install the app and move on with their lives.

<comment><USER4> I see it the opposite way. Using Messenge could give you a great way to use facebook without subjecting yourself to the News Feed Giant Tentacled Monster.

Why not use Messenger without Facebook?

My reason not to use Facebook was because it trivializes friendships. With Facebook, I wouldn't have to go out of my way to be "friends" with someone, so the relationship would be less meaningful. But Messenger doesn't share that property --- you have to bother to click on someone's name and you have to bother to think up a good message to send them. That means it's no worse than any other IM client, with the strong advantage that your real-world friends already use it. You get to keep up with them in the way you want to, and they get to keep up with you in the way they want to.

Best of both worlds?

<comment><USER5> There's a ton of reasons to not use Messenger.

1\. The mandatory "seen" indicator

2\. All of your messages are beholden to a private company, permanently stored in plaintext

3\. They analyze said messages to deliver advertisements. Seriously, one time I mentioned buying a Samsung SSD to my friend in chat, and all of a sudden I got a ton of SSD advertisements on the sidebar. Same thing when I mentioned Rick and Morty.

4\. It's Facebook, for crying out loud.

<comment><USER6> Most of these sound like reasons not to use Facebook in general.

While the seen indicator is a legitimate annoyance, it's been commonplace for some years now. I don't know of a modern chat app that doesn't have it.

As for the rest of your points, Facebook's money comes from ads. These concerns are not limited to chat, but using Facebook in general. As you browse the web, Facebook is tracking you and using the data to deliver more relevant ads. As you comment and make posts, Facebook uses the data to deliver more relevant ads.

Every part of the service is designed to help them do this, saying that these are reasons to "not use Messenger" is missing the point. The point of using Messenger is that you're not tied to any other portion of Facebook. You just get to message friends, plain and simple. The benefit is you're not being enticed into scrolling your news feed, spammed with notifications about upcoming events etc.

Plus, there are rumours they're going to bring e2e encryption in a la Whatsapp, which would pretty much squash points 2 and 3.

<comment><USER4> I'm waiting for the next chat service to emulate the 'ytalk' and 'talkd' practice of the 1980s to echo all keystrokes to the other party as they're typed, rather than waiting for the user to press send.

"Instant Messaging" indeed!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_\(software\))

<comment><USER7> There's a nice XMPP extension for that.

Spec: [https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0301.html](https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0301.html) Demos: [http://www.realjabber.org/](http://www.realjabber.org/)

Not that Google (or whoever) are going to implement it now...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So rather than fixing the problems that result in users messaging via the mobile web app instead of the messenger app, they're just going to "solve" the problem by forcing users to use the messenger app? This is why Facebook as a company doesn't have high levels of consumer trust. This will bite them in the future. Once you lose that level of trust it is extremely difficult to gain back.

<comment><USER9> I suspect it's less about solving problems and more about breaking out of that web browser sandbox to siphon up more of that juicy, juicy data.

<comment><USER10> Apologies, my computer mouse malfunctioned and I downvoted you while swapping between windows, and I felt so bad about doing so I feel compelled to comment :(

And I actually agree with you...

<comment><USER11> Well, I did not intent to vote that post, but now I upvoted it just to undo your mistake.

<comment><USER12> He agreed with him so I just upvoted his post to give him back the upvote he meant.

<comment><USER13> I have always found it surprising that someone may honestly think that upvoting and downvoting can be used to express agreement or disagreement. If you strongly agree or disagree, just reply with a post of your own; up/downvoting is there so you could express your opinion on the quality of the post rather than whether you think that what it is saying is true or false.

<comment><USER14> Paul Graham, who started HN, is one of those people: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171) . Generally, HN strongly discourages "me too" or "i agree" type comments. We prefer to just upvote comments in order to keep discussion threads interesting and on-topic.

<comment><USER15> It's pretty much upvote to agree, downvote if it doesn't contribute.

Of course the next highest child is then always the next most agreed upon counter argument since they should reply instead of downvote, which can make HN feel a bit contrary but full of good discourse

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I dislike this change. I specifically only access Facebook on my phone via the web app because (1) it saves significant battery and (2) I absolutely do not want the popup bubbles during the work day from church and other social groups I am connected to on Facebook. Ultimately, all this means is that I will stop accessing Facebook Messenger on my phone all together. I will communicate with the people who matter most over the Signal app or plain old SMS or email.

<comment><USER17> Not to mention that Facebook has intentionally changed the email address of contacts in people's phones without asking them [0].

This does not change my mind about banning all Facebook apps from my devices, it just means even less Facebook for me.

[0] [http://www.cnet.com/how-to/facebook-changed-your-e-mail- addr...](http://www.cnet.com/how-to/facebook-changed-your-e-mail-address- heres-how-you-can-change-it-back/?_escaped_fragment_=#)!

<comment><USER18> > Not to mention that Facebook has intentionally changed the email address of > contacts in people's phones without asking them

They changed it on FB, not in people's phones.

<comment><USER19> That's not true, the Facebook app was "syncing" local contacts with Facebook, and thus modifying them.

<comment><USER18> Oh I wasn't aware of this "syncing" feature; I thought it had a read-only access to your contact, that's all. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> 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.

</comment><comment><USER21> Eventually facebook will become so user hostile the network effect will mean that so many people are leaving it'll be like Digg and Myspace all over again. Can we go back to the time when companies tried to please users instead of advertisers?

<comment><USER22> I'm not a heavy Facebook user, so I may very well be wrong, but I think Facebook is slowly start to be less valuable in some respects.

For instance businesses need to start evaluating if they really require a Facebook presence. The users that can reach you on Facebook are obnoxious, and expects 24/7 feedback. Unless you are a small niche business you're simply not able to build sufficient community around your Facebook page for it to help further your business. For medium and large companies Facebook is just a place for customers to complain and win prices.

As the company I work for has expanded and become less and less niche we seeing decreasing user engagement from our customers on Facebook, unless they can win a price. At this point marketing really should evaluate the continued need for maintaining a Facebook page, it's just becoming a third support channel, but one where peoples expectations are simply to high, in terms of response time.

Honestly, why is companies like Coca Cola or Volvo on Facebook, it make zero sense when you think about it.

<comment><USER23> The big companies have got a Facebook/Twitter etc presence because their competitors have one. It's almost certainly a pain in the ass for them because as you mention customers will use it as a public platform to beat the company with when they're pissed off.

There was a period about 5 years ago when every company in the world thought they needed to have Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on. It was a serious case of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) as opposed to a genuine business case for social media.

I suspect we're going to see small and medium companies take a view that maintaining a presence on social media is still not generating ROI. As a result they'll consolidate to fewer social media platforms and perhaps at some point none at all.

If SMEs (or SMBs as they're known in the US) take this approach, big companies will slowly follow I'm sure.

<comment><USER24> Indeed! Though one example of a big company who has (notoriously) zero presence on any social networks would be Apple.

<comment><USER25> Not quite zero, a couple of months ago they launched a support channel on Twitter. [https://twitter.com/AppleSupport](https://twitter.com/AppleSupport)

<comment><USER26> They also have some accounts for specific things, but no general Apple one. The support channel is about the closest to an official overall Apple account. The support channel seems to be pretty decent so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Now it's going to be much harder to send messages from your friend's phone when your phone dies. Before you could use an incognito tab, and now you have to log out of the Messenger app entirely and log in as another user.

<comment><USER28> Thank you for bringing up this point - I've often thought about it before, but I didn't immediately think of the connection here. Just another reason why these kinds of changes are a bad idea. It might not be that often that you're without your device (battery died, stolen, forgotten), but _when that happens_ not having a great fallback is really annoying. This goes for all kinds of apps and services, not just fb messaging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> 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?

<comment><USER30> "better for the user" does not mean "better for EVERY user". A product team has to prioritize. I hate the permissions demanded by messenger, but for me it is nicer to use than the mobile site.

I'm curious what people prefer about the web chat version?

<comment><USER9> The web version has no obnoxious notifications (yeah I know you can block them), but the big reason for me is that it's unable to access your contact list, text messages, photo gallery, camera, microphone and GPS. I don't want to share that information with Facebook/5 Eyes.

<comment><USER31> I stopped using the FB App back in 2014 when the upgrade required a whole heap of additional permissions - the ones you mention. It then forced the update along with separating out the Messenger app.

The mobile web version gave me everything that I needed when using FB - checking some occasional updates, messages and people posting baby pics. Nothing that requires a separate app, and nothing that requires an app, esp since you _need_ to be connected to the internet to see _anything_. I really don't see (from my perspective) the point of any FB app.

The mobile view was awesome for me. This move blows. Since the messaging is still available on the desktop browser version, this literally means zero extra development time.

FU FB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is hostile as fuck. Just clicking on the Messages icon on the mobile website launches Google Play Store.

<comment><USER33> Use this app to "intercept" [https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.surrel.messe...](https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=org.surrel.messengerbypasser)

<comment><USER34> The amount of stupid hacks I have to go through to make Android usable is making me consider trying out iPhone.

<comment><USER35> While I agree _in general_ and prefer iOS, in this particular case that's a bit of an odd statement. On iOS you couldn't fix this behavior at all - <USER2> "stupid hack" won't exist.

<comment><USER36> That's why Android is winning. The easy things are easy and the hard things are possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I know every time a post about Facebook makes it to the front page here people say they don't use Facebook anymore but as a heavy Facebook user I am so fucking glad I blocked all Facebook domains last week. I feel liberated! This move would have quite ecked me but nope! Fuck you Facebook.

<comment><USER38> Congratulations! I've tried that before, but have relapsed after a few months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This announcement coming on the same day as the post about Facebook not using the microphone in the app seems strange to me.

I don't want any Facebook apps on my phone due to privacy and tracking reasons, and so I used the web view (with an app wrapper like Tinfoil with location disabled), now I won't be able to send messages any longer.

Guess I won't be using Messenger any longer.

<comment><USER40> You can disable microphone access for Messenger app. I disable everything and only enable them when needed.

<comment><USER39> I assume you must be on Android 6.0? Some (most) of us are still on older phones without that functionality.

<comment><USER40> Ah you're right. I'm on iOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> So much complaining. The web app version is crap, of course they want to move people over to the app. Why waste resources on an inferior web version when they can focus their attention on the very successful mobile app. Its just good business sense and seeing that 99.9999999999% of Facebook users already have Messenger installed, its a non issue.

<comment><USER42> The web app version has a whole lot of features that the installed app doesn't:

* It takes up zero phone memory. Yes, this is _still_ an issue on really cheap Android phones. [0]

* It takes up zero phone resources, unlike the Facebook app, which is known for _slowing down your entire phone_. [1]

* The messenger app wants to send me notifications about stupid things and collect personal data using its over-broad permissions. I don't trust Facebook, and I'm not a tinfoil hat type.

* I don't want another chat ecosystem in my life, but if someone _does_ message me on Facebook, I'd like to be able to see it on my phone without having to install an idiotic, resource-sapping, spyware app.

I really, really don't _want_ a "good" Facebook chat solution. People want to chat with me, they can use Skype, Google Hangouts, or Slack. Or just send me an email and we can talk on the phone.

[0] [http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_core_prime-6716.php](http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_core_prime-6716.php)

[1] [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/207468](http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/207468)

<comment><USER41> Takes up zero memory and resources, that must be some magical web app. Notifications, they can be turned off. Messenger is not a just another chat ecosystem, it is THE chat ecosystem. The messenger app is not resource intensive, it works fine. What makes you think Google, Microsoft and the Slack teams intentions are more "pure" than Facebook? Facebook is not spying on you, as much as you like to think your special, no one cares what you, yourself do.

<comment><USER42> >Takes up zero memory and resources, that must be some magical web app.

Sarcasm much?

If I'm not using it, it's using no resources. When I'm using it, then _duh_ , it uses transient resources in Chrome, but when I close the tab, it's back to zero. If I end up using it once every two months, the amortized resource usage is probably 0.1% of an app that needs to receive push notifications.

>Messenger is not a just another chat ecosystem, it is THE chat ecosystem.

Shill much? I just tried to check to see how many people had even tried to contact me in the last year on Messenger, and it looks like I've received about 5 messages in 12 months. But it's hard to tell, because the web app keeps crashing/locking up. No other chat ecosystem I'm connected to behaves that poorly.

If you're using it with all your friends, have a blast. Just don't expect me to respond quickly if you message me; email on my secondary email account would be faster. When I checked just now I found a message that I hadn't noticed and that had sat, unanswered, for 9 months. Not the best way to get a hold of me.

>What makes you think Google, Microsoft and the Slack teams intentions are more "pure" than Facebook?

Nothing. But Hangouts is on my (Android) phone and in my life anyway. Skype is what business contacts seem to _always_ want to use; I swear it has a 99.9% market penetration for companies that do remote work or hire remote workers. Skype also has awesome Skype-to-phone calling, including 3-way calls, that works great with my high quality microphone and speakers, so I can talk hands free and everyone can understand me well. And Slack is ideal for group and work-team hangouts.

Why would I buy into another ecosystem? Just so that I can install yet another app on my phone and on my desktop? I am _very_ reachable by email. If you know my name, you can likely find a contact email for me within 15 minutes. If someone doesn't have my email address and doesn't care enough to put in 2-15 minutes of "research" to find it, I'm not sure if I care whether they can easily contact me. And if they must use Messenger, well, I'm sure I'll see their message eventually.

>as much as you like to think your special, no one cares what you, yourself do.

I'll just leave these here:

[http://www.geek.com/news/facebook-like-button-tracks-you- eve...](http://www.geek.com/news/facebook-like-button-tracks-you-even-if-you- dont-click-1380793/)

[http://www.ted.com/talks/alessandro_acquisti_why_privacy_mat...](http://www.ted.com/talks/alessandro_acquisti_why_privacy_matters)

[https://www.teachprivacy.com/10-reasons-privacy- matters/](https://www.teachprivacy.com/10-reasons-privacy-matters/)

[https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matter...](https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters?language=en)

Many of these focus on government access to information, but many times companies have just handed over anything the government has asked for without a fight. Facebook absolutely is watching me along with billions of other people. No, no one _at_ Facebook cares, but they're compiling a huge dossier on practically everyone on the planet. So is Google, but I believe that Google at least _tries_ to Do No Harm. And I don't use Gmail as my primary mail service, either -- I also use Duck Duck Go for most of my searches.

I just think it's not healthy for any one company to have _too much_ information about everyone. Makes an oppressive government's job too easy, if one should arise __cough __Trump __cough __.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> > 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.

<comment><USER44> requesting the desktop site still works in chrome for android

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> User-hostile moves like this fill me with deep, deep frustration.

<comment><USER46> Which is why they started doing them only after they have achieved world domination. Where are you going to go, myspace? Google+?

To quote Mel Brooks' brilliant "History of the World, Part I" \- "It's good to be the king".

<comment><USER47> More than 50% of my time is spent chatting in a specific small group of friends. We used Whatsapp before (when they didn't have web access). Before switching to Facebook I tried convincing them to try Slack but alas that option lost out. Too bad, because I think Slack is a really good platform.

<comment><USER46> What was the reason to drop whatsapp? And why is slack better than facebook?

If you don't want to trust slack of facebook, rocket.chat is shaping up nicely as a self-hostable solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I only use facebook over the browser when using my phone. The facebook applications request an appalling number of permissions... never mind the general intrusiveness and battery hogging.

Screw you Facebook.

<comment><USER49> Android 6 fixes this excessive need for permissions by mobile apps. You only grant permission at runtime and can withdraw it at anytime.

<comment><USER28> As far as I know, it's still tricky to install an app, then revoke all permissions before the app can possibly run? It would be different if no apps got any permissions by default, and they all had to "prompt on first use" \- but that's not how it works, or is it?

<comment><USER50> That's how it works for apps targeting API 23 (Marshmallow).

<comment><USER28> Right, but the fb app targets much older APIs? And/or how would you know before installing?

<comment><USER51> I think it asks you when you install the app only if it targets an older API. Not certain though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> If fb can't support basic browser based text chat they have a major lack of talent. If it's costing them much to support they have serious financial problems.

I don't think that either is true so I guess they just want to sniff around my phone. Sorry fb, not today.

</comment><comment><USER53> Interestingly, it lets me use the mobile webapp messaging without asking me to do anything. Because the OS I'm on has no Messenger app, and it probably will never have one.

So if you spoof your UA string, it may stop bugging you and let you use messenger as usual.

<comment><USER34> Parent is almost, but not quite, entirely useless.

Would you mind sharing with the class what that particular UA is?

<comment><USER53> Firefox on Firefox OS

Mozilla/5.0 (Mobile; rv:47.0) Gecko/47.0 Firefox/47.0

I don't think its useless. Pretty sure Facebook didn't special case Firefox OS, they special cased android/ios. A random UA string (anything that doesn't say android) would be enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I saw this change last night. I will never, EVER install FB Messenger because I don't want facebook to have access to my contact list. Period. This is the worst move the company has made since Beacon and I am at a loss for words to think of how they are justifying forcing people to use an app they clearly don't want to use.

</comment><comment><USER55> Try Mbasic.facebook.com instead. I also use the browser for Facebook, and have now switched to mbasic instead. It's great.

</comment><comment><USER56> I have a FB account but rarely login to it. I've never installed the app on my iPhone because I don't want notifications and generally find FB distasteful.

If there was a higher class crowd on FB I would probably use it more but for me it ended up being a bunch of people from my hometown / high school who are angry, usually at other ethnic groups and don't seem wildly successful in their own right.

If I do want to login, I just wait until I'm at a computer. The standalone Messenger app is horrible for permissions and should be avoided at all costs. If you can muster the strength to delete FB, even better. I'm able to _very_ easily not feel tempted to login to that cesspool so I haven't needed to delete mine.

<comment><USER57> You could just de-friend them.

<comment><USER58> ...or unfollow them.

Most of the time, if someone complains about "stupid discussions/content" or anything alike, I feel that facebook just isn't used in its full potential.

I unfollowed/unfriended/blocked all the connections to people who produce content which isn't enriching my browsing experience. As a result I follow around 10% of my facebook friends, which is a set of about 200 connections with (mostly) valuable content.

<comment><USER56> I would end up with about 10% or less like you said. I figured if I'm going to start deleting people I'll just delete FB wholesale. Just helps me get spied on anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> i refuse to install the mobile app because there is no way to stop people from calling you on messenger. There is no way to turn it off or have some kind of do not disturb. If someone wants to mess with you they can just keep calling you and your only choice is to block them and remove them from your friends list

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "If someone wants to mess with you they can just keep calling you and your only choice is to block them and remove them from your friends list"

This seems like either a made up scenario or you have weird friends. Who would keep calling someone to 'mess with them'???

<comment><USER60> A classmate when you're holding a presentation? It sounds entirely plausible to me.

<comment> k-mcgrady Why would you have your phone on while giving a presentation? Also, it's not a very Messenger specific problem - they could do the same thing with your actual phone number.

<comment><USER60> Well I usually put my phone to silent during class and especially presentations. The person you commented on mentioned there is no silent mode. Of course you could turn the phone off entirely, but then it takes longer to turn on, and you have to unlock the SIM card again... quite a hassle just to make facebook's apps shut up.

I don't know though, I've never used Facebook Messenger.

<comment> k-mcgrady If you silence your device it will silence everything on it. No noise, no vibrations, no way for apps to bypass it (iPhone at least, and I'm pretty sure it's the same with Android).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I'm not going to claim that my experiences here are the norm because I doubt they are, but the primary impact of Facebook previously splitting Messenger off into a separate app (from the native mobile app) in the circle of people I communicate with on Facebook is that we all (organically, without ever really discussing it) just switched back to using olde timey SMS/MMS for things that would have been Facebook messages.

Not at all a spiteful/angry decision, just more of a "well, if I have to go out to another app to do this shit, I might as well just use this thing that works with all my friends including the increasing number of them that don't ever login to Facebook anymore".

</comment><comment><USER62> I mean, to be fair, the only thing I use Facebook for is Messenger, and the Messenger app is actually halfway decent. It caches user names and pictures a little too aggressively, and the new trend of "let's add a row of buttons to the text input box, doubling its size to reduce screen space for features that should be optional" is incredibly obnoxious, but overall it's a decent app. It's obviously not designed for the users, but it's better than the Hangouts app.

This isn't to say that removing the web functionality isn't a dick move and fairly user-hostile, but I don't really understand why so many people act like Messenger.app is an affront to god and man.

<comment><USER63> Permissions on Android, it seems like

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Speaking of dark patterns, Google has completely broken Gmail and Google Docs/Drive in incognito mode in Android Chrome. It purposefully loses the cookie and will not function once you switch away to another app and then back to the browser. They are trying hard to force people into using the native apps, or at least staying logged in, for GMail/Inbox and Drive. It's really lame. Instead of being passive-aggressive, they could just put up a message saying that they don't support a specific usage. This is a well known "bug" that has been around in their bug tracker for a while.

<comment><USER65> Install Chrome Beta, Opera, Opera Beta. Voila, now you have 4 separate cookie jars for different use cases. For staying logged in gmail/fb I use Chrome beta, Chrome stable for normal browsing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> As a heavy messenger user, my typical use-cases can entirely be fulfilled with a web-based messenger. However, FB doesn't let people open messenger.com from a mobile browser. And if you request the desktop site, it's virtually unusable on the tiny phone screen. It must have been really hard to make a responsive messenger UI.

</comment><comment><USER67> This is awful. I refuse to have the Facebook app on my phone, and obviously refuse to have messenger too. The last thing I want is more of my xommunications and data owned by that company. Fortunately I can do perfectly well without reading my messages on the web browser. I hope this decision marks an inflexion point for the company

</comment><comment><USER68> I love how every HN thread about Facebook's scummy forced engagement tactics always turn into Fbook addiction-denail support groups.

Just drop Fbook guys - trust me, you'll be fine without it. If someone _really_ wants to talk to you they'll get your email or phone number through a mutual friend/family member.

</comment><comment><USER69> I really hate using Facebook in general, and very rarely have to use it for group projects. I'm loathe to even load the website on my phone, so this is an awful update...

<comment><USER60> I would encourage you to not give them what they want. Just use a computer/laptop when chatting with some project group (that's what I did back when Telegram and Slack didn't exist yet).

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Well this means I'm done for good with Facebook. My disabled account will soon be deleted I guess, messenger is just packed with spyware :(

<comment><USER71> Oh interesting, like what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> I very determinantly refuse to install both the regular FB app and the messenger, even though this is quite inconvenient as I often miss messages or event invites. But they require pretty much EVERY PERMISSION there is on Android, which is ridiciolous, and totally inacceptable to me.

So this change will make it even harder for me to access FB messaging. Buuh.

<comment><USER73> Are you on a modern Android build? You can now selectively enable permissions, as of Android 6.0.

<comment><USER72> I can't upgrade to 6.0 yet.

Also, I haven't tried it with FB, but a lot of apps actually fail or don't work properly if you don't give them all of the permissions they require.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> I recently uninstalled both apps, and my phone seems to be running much smoother since. If someone needs me they can text. I think it's time to ween off facebook, and sell my stock.

</comment><comment><USER75> I think it's their second attempt at this. I remember when they were opening dialogs to invite me use Messenger to reply to messages on a page I admin. I switched the browser to desktop user agent, which on a tablet is ok. Eventually they gave up. I'll do the same this time.

</comment><comment><USER76> [https://github.com/gsurrel/MessengerBypasser](https://github.com/gsurrel/MessengerBypasser)

Problem solver for Android. Available via fdroid.I use Tinfoil for Facebook and this compliments it nicely.

</comment><comment><USER77> Why is anyone using Facebook for chat at all? (Real question)

<comment><USER78> Because everyone has it. And it doesn't need a phone number. So it's almost as ubiquitous as SMS, without distributing your phone number. Win-win.

<comment><USER77> So if its main selling point is being ubiquitous, why the fuck wouldn't they force everyone to the same platform?

<comment><USER79> I have the opposite question: if its main selling point is being ubiquitous, why the fuck wouldn't they want to maximize the number of ways users can access it so that it stays, you know, ubiquitous?

<comment><USER78> Yup, because they're idiots and it's moves like this that will allow an upstart to steal all the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> I hate how when I go to a website it forces me to open it in the app. If I Google a restaurant, and Yelp comes up, opens up in Yelp app....same with Amazon. Seems like you can long press a link to open it in the browser...but it's a very poor user experience.

When I am running low on space on my phone, those apps the the first to get deleted Facebook and Messengae first, of course!. Facebook caches their data and at one point it was at 700mb...with no way to clear the data except for deleting the app and reinstalling.

</comment><comment><USER81> Well, this will mean even less fb interaction for me.

FB iOS apps were resource pigs and data whores. Neither installed.

Maybe I'll just vnc in to a browser on the home machine when I need to message.

Otherwise, iMessage it is.

<comment><USER82> I read "FBIOS"

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> It's incredibly difficult to do end to end encryption well in a mobile browser.

Facebook has hinted they are rolling that out and it will create all kinds of frustration for mobile web users.

</comment><comment><USER84> You can also use Trillian for FB messages instead of installing the FB app. [https://www.trillian.im](https://www.trillian.im)

<comment><USER85> Seconded! I use the paid version but the free version supports Facebook messenger just fine. I just got my brother on it yesterday and he already recommended it to everyone fed up with the new change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> You can just switch over to the desktop version of Facebook and the messaging will work as on a desktop browser. You can also use messenger.com by requesting the desktop version. It sucks but not as much as the intrusive messenger.

The trend is alarming though and just fortifies my perception of Facebook further. They're trying to make their cust..uh, _I mean, products_ , behave the way they want instead of listening to what people want and how they want it. That's a classic bad move from any company. Since this is HN, wasn't success supposed to have a high correlation with "Make something people want" ?

Facebook's leverage is mostly based on their user base. As soon as there's at least one commonly used social network where I can find most of my friends, bye bye Facebook. That is a ridiculously hard problem to solve and Facebook know that. At the same time they're just using more and more of that leverage by trying to force things down on people's throats instead of adding to the pile of reasons why people would want to use Facebook. This makes it imperative that once something else, something even moderately bearable _that is not Facebook_ , becomes available then people will be fleeing in masses.

</comment><comment><USER87> Yes, enforcing your users. That is how it works. (/sarcasm)

I was a very active facebook user for a long time and never imagined that I could stop using it, having so many of my relationships hosted in there. But honestly it all went so strange. 90% of the FB notifications are spam. The very good inapp chat was replaced by a worse extra app and now they enforce it everywhere. In the end I just deactivated notifications for all of that. Byebye, social network.

<comment><USER88> I rotally agree. During the last months I monitored myself using FB less and less.

For years I have to used the app or messenger. If needed I only ever access the website. If they take the messaging functionality away I will even use it less. Or leave it all behind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> I guess people will just have a hard time getting a response out of me if they try and contact me via Facebook message. The Messenger app will never touch my phone.

</comment><comment><USER90> I don't use FB, but my wife does. She is quite unhappy about it. She doesn't want FB to have access to everything (yes, some poor folk like us are not on Android 6 and will not be for a while.).

The other issue is the size of the app. I realize that most people don't have this issue, but on the lower end phones adding another 36mb app means loosing another. And given history that 36mb app is likely to be 80 by the end of the year.

</comment><comment><USER91> Its funny how every post about FB on HN, brings out users claiming not to use FB and so now they have so much free time now, which they can use to discuss FB :D

<comment><USER92> Are you sure it's funny?

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Simple solution: don't chat on Facebook. Reply via the web interface and tell the other person to send you an email, SMS, or Google Hangouts message.

<comment><USER37> Simple yes, practical no.

<comment><USER79> Practical enough for me. The only thing I use Facebook for is to say "Thank you" when folks wish me a happy birthday on my "wall". For literally everything else, the friends and family worth talking to have gotten the message that I'm not reliably reachable on Facebook and therefore should be reached by other means (and if they're worth talking to, they should already have my phone number and/or email address).

It's about drawing a line. I drew that line two years ago, and not once have I looked back or otherwise felt any semblance of regret or frustration from it. Among SMS, email, Telegram, Google+/Hangouts, ordinary phone calls, snail mail, in-person, and the cornucopia of other communications options out there, there's zero reason to put up with Facebook's nonsense.

<comment><USER28> Then why do you even have a facebook account?

<comment><USER94> I use Facebook (somewhat sparingly) but considered deleting my profile a few years ago, when I wasn't using it at all.

I decided against because it was so useful as an "every once in a while" inbox for people who wouldn't have been able to reach me otherwise: a girl I met at a party, a cousin from Australia who happened to be in town for a couple of days, etc etc. The former would either never find me (depending on how big the party was) and the latter would have to jump through the hoops of chaining phone numbers through our large extended family. Both of those are handily coopted by having an almost-universal directory, with customizable amounts of information displayed, along with photos so you know it's the right profile.

<comment><USER95> Or you know, you guys could have emailed each other. Everyone still has email and you know what its the one thing on the internet that always works really well.

This is typical trope of the "why I have to be on FB." Download everyones contact and or sync to your address book. When people are in town they text you or email you. Trust me it works. People found each other just fine before FB and they can just find now.

<comment><USER94> > Or you know, you guys could have emailed each other.

Um, did you actually read my comment? Roughly half ofit was dedicated to the fact that being able to find me by just my name and photo is easier than trying to track down my phone number; I'm not sure how you missed that....

Why do you think it would be any easier to find my email address? If anything, connecting us across my extended family would be a lot harder through finding a bunch of emails than finding a bunch of email addresses. I honestly don't know what reality you're imagining where everybody has the email address of everybody they know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> Behaviour like this is why we need efforts like purple-facebook[0]

I wish to be able to host purple-facebook on a server and throw a web UI in front of it. It won't be as complete as messenger, but at least basic chat will work without having to download a sneaky app.

0: [https://github.com/dequis/purple- facebook](https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook)

</comment><comment><USER97> That's not true. You still can access the conversations from a browser on Android.

\- press the chat icon

\- wait for Google Play to open

\- switch back to your browser

\- press the "X" on the "Your conversations are moved to Messanger" dialog

\- select the person you want to chat with

\- wait for Google Play to open again

\- switch back to your browser

Proof that it works: [http://i.imgur.com/29BoF8V.png](http://i.imgur.com/29BoF8V.png)

<comment><USER98> From the TechCrunch article: "At the moment, you can just dismiss the notice and go about your business. But this summer the warning will become an impenetrable wall, and your only option will be to download the official Messenger app."

<comment><USER97> Aaand it's gone.

Now you can't dismiss it at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> I'm surprised at all the hate coming from everyone. Then again I already use messenger.com never used the mobile web app for chat.

<comment><USER85> Messenger.com blocks most mobile browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Facebook's "Paper" app has a better UI than the official client, and it still has messaging directly integrated.

<comment><USER101> It's not available all over the world and is iOS only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> I am not a mobile app junkie, and I count the number of messaging apps on my mobile: imessage, whatsapp, kik. That's already 3, ie two too many. Then I would need to add facebook, telegram, google's latest thing, skype? I mean why not a different messaging app for each contact? Why does facebook thinks I need more messaging apps?

<comment><USER60> The only messaging app I have installed is Telegram. People who can't use that (my cousin still has some old Blackberry, a classmate has no smartphone and my dad has no messaging apps) can use good ol' SMS, and that works fine since it's practically free nowadays. Problem solved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> Mark my words, pop-up advertisement will be served via chat-bots in a year. Hence the push to an application that has a pop-up feature like those head- bubble things.

I've been using Tinfoil for Facebook for a good while now, since my old phone is just incapable of handling their applications. I guess it's time to just delete my profile for good.

</comment><comment><USER104> I have the Messenger app. When I first installed it, it asked me to do the following:

\- Enable Notifications

\- Enable access to my Contacts

\- Add my phone number to my FB account

I respectfully refused to allow any of this. __Every time __that I opened the Messenger app, I got a pop-up asking me to enable Notifications. I enabled notifications, then went into my iOS settings and disabled them. This stopped the pop-ups, but now I see a red warning symbol on my Messenger "Me" icon in the lower right which wants me to enable Notifications once and for all. I also see another red icon on the People icon which says that I need to sync my contacts.

I'm disappointed in the direction that Facebook is turning the Messenger app towards. They seem to be desperate for these three options to be enabled.

</comment><comment><USER105> Did they notice people are uninstalling FB app? :) It's a bit scary to see how they grab vast amounts of our attention. I've heard they aim to make the Messenger a "business" communication app that replaces email. I sincerely hope they will not succeed.

</comment><comment><USER106> Uh, I pretty much hate the facebook app these days because they're always trying to cram their overly zealous messenger app down my proverbial throught. No facebook, I don't want a bazillion notifications and another massive app on my tiny phone.

</comment><comment><USER107> Which means I will actively start steering my conversation partners to matrix.org and vector.im

</comment><comment><USER108> That'd be the end to staying in touch through mobile FB in w3m on an EC2 instance SSH'd into from China.

(Not that it's _that_ convenient… Gotta say though, impressed with both FB being able to work in w3m, and with w3m being able to handle FB.)

</comment><comment><USER109> And I couldn't be happier. I discovered Messenger as "FB chat without all the distractions" (and much snappier); and seeing that it gets prioritized (instead of being an alternative way) is, for me, a good thing.

<comment><USER60> Fine that you are happy with it (though I have moral concerns with Facebook as a whole, if you're happy with it, that's quite alright). However should that mean that _everyone_ has to be happy with installing this app, instead of being given the choice to use the website?

<comment><USER109> In theory it is great when there are many choices. In practice, companies focus - and it is better when they have a single working product than a few almost-working products.

I don't want to say that everything FB does is fine - but this particular product is OK. Looking other way - would I like to get a working standalone product being integrated in FB, so that I cannot use it without viewing wall. Hell no!

On mobile I use FB app anyway - so maybe it is why I don't feel the pain. (And installed Messenger app quite some time ago.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> I dislike this change, but fortunately - at least so far - it is possible to use Chrome on an Android phone and request the desktop version of any site, and Facebook desktop version still allows using the messaging function in browser.

I'm not going to install Facebook messenger, it east battery and reports my location when I don't want it to. So if they kludge the desktop site so that it doesn't work on Android Chrome, I'll just not use Facebook messaging. Facebook should at least add an auto-reply function to tell anyone who tries to message me that "please send email to xxx instead".

</comment><comment><USER111> Are they getting rid of messenger.com too?

<comment><USER112> When I navigate to it on my OS X and iOS platforms, it just pushes me to download the app. Was there ever something different there?

<comment><USER78> Chrome on Windows 10 shows a full-fledged messenger UI. It's quite nice. It does not redirect to the Windows universal app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> Free market ideologues would have you believe that companies have only incentives to improve their products and services, giving customers what they want, so the company can earn more. Competition will ensure this happens, right?

Not in this case. Here we have a company that has incentives to _cripple_ its product and services, taking away from many customers features they clearly use and want, and giving them something else they clearly don't want, so the company can earn more.

<comment><USER114> You forget, Facebook's customers are not its users; they are assets whose access they are selling to their actual customers, ad agencies and marketers. Advertising made up nearly 97% of Facebook's revenue in Q1 2016[0]. Messenger and messaging is something Facebook has not previously monetized, and I would presume this is part of Facebook's plan to monetize messenger by releasing ads on it in Q2 2016[1]. This all makes perfect sense if messaging in the Facebook app is used by few enough of its users that the cost of maintaining and monetizing it would be greater than ad revenue it could generate, which seems reasonable to me. So, in fact, they are _only_ improving their products and services for their paying customers, advertisers. I'm rather confidant that Facebook would not be doing this if its users were its paying customers. [0] [http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=967167](http://investor.fb.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=967167) [1] [http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/facebook-messenger- ads/](http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/18/facebook-messenger-ads/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> The reason I use the web interface and not the app are following:

\- you can't disable notifications \- you can't secure your app (aka Pin protection or a password) \- huge battery drain as it is constantly connected to the internet.

The web app is easy. You log in and you check your messages. An alternative for android that I have found for Android is called fast Facebook. It shows a web view of the chat and ignores the market:// redirects. Which is already better.

<comment><USER116> _\- you can 't disable notifications_

You absolutely can mute conversations, tap the (i) at the top of each convo, very first menu option should be "Notifications".

With you on everything else.

<comment><USER44> if i understand you correctly, that's muting conversations on a one-at-a-time basis, which is not the same as being able to globally disable notifications from the app

<comment><USER116> You can disable those too, click the "Profile" icon (the one with the silhouette) at the main screen, third menu option after user name and phone number is notifications. Globally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> I found this app meant to fight this block by facebook. [https://github.com/gsurrel/MessengerBypasser/blob/HEAD/READM...](https://github.com/gsurrel/MessengerBypasser/blob/HEAD/README.md)

I tried it with tinfoil for facebook and it seems to work well.

It also states that what crashes the tinfoil-app is a call to launch Messenger.

</comment><comment><USER118> I don't want their battery sucking apps on my phone. Occasionally I'd like to see messages people send me. Really really really stupid.

</comment><comment><USER119> I have a blackberry (BB10 based Q5) as my personal phone. The reasons for this are manyfold, and I migrated from Android. I love my Q5 it does everything I need really well... except for FB and Messenger - there's no native apps. So I am now in the situation of trying to convert my friends to something else for chat, or change my phone.

It will probably be the latter.

(Written via my Blackberry)

</comment><comment><USER82> I've heard that the reason there are so many "varieties" of products in grocery stores (think varieties of Colgate toothpaste) is that the manufacturers are trying to maximize the shelf space their products take up.

Are Google and Facebook doing the same thing with home screens? Is that why they're smashing their big apps into little ones?

</comment><comment><USER120> Facebook has peaked... its downhill from here... annoying the users so they find something else small group by small group

</comment><comment><USER121> This is a nod probably towards the trend that Facebook itself is dying. What is left is Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.

</comment><comment><USER122> Didn't they already do this long ago? I thought it was a few years ago that they made me install messenger to use messages. That thing was a little too... cowboy... with all those bubbles splattering all over my screen. I uninstalled Facebook Messenger to save my sanity and haven't conversed via messages for years.

</comment><comment><USER38> FaceSlim has figured out a way to bypass this restriction:

[http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/03/facebook-is-disabling- messa...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/03/facebook-is-disabling-messaging-in- its-mobile-web-app-to-push-people-to-messenger/)

</comment><comment><USER123> It's already nigh impenetrable. Each tap or action within Messages on the mobile site brings up that modal and also switches your active app to the Google Play (or I imagine the Apple App Store for iPhones) store page of Messenger.

Really, really, really annoying.

So I've just started requesting the desktop site on my mobile browser.

</comment><comment><USER124> Might because of this new "Deep learning text" ? I know this will be mainly integrated into Messenger.

</comment><comment><USER125> Help me understand - why is this so bad?

<comment><USER93> Some people don't want any Facebook software in their phones for legitimate privacy reasons.

<comment><USER125> What is it that Messenger the app can access that Messenger via Facebook cannot, for people who take their privacy seriously?

<comment><USER38> Privacy concerned users can use wrappers around the Facebook website, such as the open source "Tinfoil for Facebook" or "Face Slim" android apps, then Facebook cannot access certain things (depending on your configuration). If have to use a proprietary facebook app, then likely cannot achieve the same degree of privacy protections.

<comment><USER125> I'm sorry. I still don't understand what specific information Facebook can gather from them using their app that they can't from the browser. When I look in my phone settings for the Messenger app, I can switch off it's ability to look at locations, photos, etc.

Tinfoil appears to be an app to specifically work around the fact that browsers can leak _more_ information than the app would.

<comment><USER38> well the facebook app is always on, even in background. It is probably reading every keystroke and touch action, and even every pause between actions. But when accessing the basic browser site inside tinfoil, they can only get http actions you actually transmit, such as likes, login times, page loads, etc.

<comment><USER125> You think apps can read the text you type in to other apps without your permission?

<comment><USER38> Of course not other apps. I'm talking about the facebook app itself. When you start typing text, it is presumably reading the delay between every keystroke and all your deletes. However, on the non-js html site, it only can get the text after you submit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER126> Honestly... That's the only part of FB I use. For a while now I've had _only_ the Messenger app installed and just a FB shortcut to the webpage on my iPhone.

I only check FB about once a week and use Messenger daily with friends that live or travel internationally.

</comment><comment> Digit-Al I had to uninstall the Facebook Android app and the Messenger app a while ago. After an update, just having the apps on my phone was causing it to keep stuttering. And if I actually opened the Facebook app my phone would completely lock up requiring a reboot.

</comment><comment><USER127> they did this before and rolled it back, if i'm remembering things correctly.

</comment><comment><USER128> The Facebook community is, by and large, a positive for the world.

The Facebook platform is one giant, dark pattern.

Here's hoping the community wins.

Why we need to continue fostering alternatives. Diversity and competition, to keep things a little more honest.

</comment><comment><USER129> Why do they want two apps? I have never used messaging in FB after they started forcing me over to Messenger in a nasty way (I read the messages on the Web platform when I happen to log in there, which is seldom).

</comment><comment><USER130> This is kind of a non issue... You can just use messenger.com, no need to download an app. I'm probably biased though because messaging is the only thing I really use Facebook for, and event tracking.

<comment><USER85> Most mobile browsers are blocked by messenger.com though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER131> What is it with companies? Why force these unnecessary transitions. What kind of possible revenue stream will the dedicated Messenger app provide that just using the messenger on the web app not provide?

</comment><comment><USER132> Anyone have a more informed opinion on whether this is in some way due to their efforts with bots?

I'm guessing a native app enables a lot more on that front in some regard than web, or perhaps provides a moat.

</comment><comment><USER133> I've been hit with this and rather than give in to Facebook wanting me to install their messenger, will be looking into a third party app like Trillian, etc to do my chats.

</comment><comment><USER134> This seems to be the behavior last time I used the app (about 3-4 months ago).

Honestly, I just use Messenger without Facebok, since the IM part is the only thing I'd need on the road.

</comment><comment><USER135> If only there was a way to disable fb messages altogether, otherwise people who will be sending me messages there, will be distracted, and I will be the one to blame...

</comment><comment><USER136> so... will it still work on facebook lite? For those of us who avoid the official apps for battery/data consumption, FB Lite is an available middle ground...

<comment><USER137> It looks like for the moment, yes. FB Lite isn't offered in Google Play for users in wealthy countries, but there are mirrors for the APK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER138> So glad they're doing this. FB messenger is just about my favourite messenger - it beats the pants off iMessage and isn't as annoying as WhatsApp (the UX around starting a conversation with a new person in whatsapp is super shit).

It was really annoying that there's some holdouts where voice chat doesn't work (has anyone noticed how much better the quality of voice chat over FB messenger or iMessage is, vs phone calls). Or where they didn't get my messages because they didn't have notificartions set up for FB messenger.

Glad they're fixing this (and I might be the only person on HN who is :))

<comment><USER139> So what's stopping you from simply using the native FB messenger. What's the point in forcing everyone install the native app?

</comment></comment><comment><USER140> Yet they killed the FB messenger for PC. Makes no sense. Now if I'm at my PC I need to log in to their website to chat since I only use this feature of FB.

</comment><comment><USER141> [https://m.facebook.com/messages/](https://m.facebook.com/messages/) still works.

</comment><comment><USER142> I can't install Messenger on my MotoG3. It slows it the eff down to a crawl and drains the battery, even when I'm not using it.

</comment><comment><USER143> messenger.com has a functional messenger, that they are updating regularly and it scales very will to different screen sizes. Unfortunately they won't allow you to use it if they think your device is a phone, just pointing you towards the native application.

I don't know what this obsession with native applications is. A lot of the time I prefer to just use your website.

</comment><comment><USER144> "Your conversations are moving to Messenger"

No problem. It's not there's conversations with dead people in there or anything.

<comment><USER145> The conversations are not lost; they're stored on Facebook's servers.

There are plenty of reasons to dislike the move, but this isn't one.

<comment><USER144> They are moved to where I no longer have access to them.

<comment><USER145> They remain accessible, same as always; The only thing that changes is the application you are using to look at the chat history.

<comment><USER79> Not everyone has access to that application.

<comment><USER145> The desktop site still exists. It can even be viewed via mobile, for the sufficiently desperate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER146> What was the alternative before Messenger? SMS?

</comment><comment><USER147> And yesterday Pinterest forced me to install their app just to view a picture.

Native apps are really becoming dominant over mobile web apps.

</comment><comment><USER148> That will be why Tinfoil has suddenly started crashing when I try to view my messages.

All the reason I need to drop Facebook entirely then.

</comment><comment><USER149> People follow the path of least resistance and that path will not be Messenger, but something else, like Google hangouts.

<comment><USER28> Granted, it's been a while since I used hangouts, but surely that'll not be the path of least resistance. It's still a crap, web only interface? And google just launced Allo to kill video chats in hangouts, so I guess there's nothing left to save?

It'd be a good time for Duck Duck Go to revive it's XMPP server, and give it some polish, IMNHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER150> I refuse to be pressured into installing Messenger. I will tell my Facebook contacts not to use Facebook messaging.

</comment><comment><USER151> Oh, so it wasn't only me ~2months ago. I guess I ended up in an experiment ;-)

</comment><comment><USER152> I think facebook is trying to apply the bargaining power as a monopoly service provider .Facebook is trying to act smart with new enduser agreement for messenger .Facebook knows that, most of their user base will switch to messenger .I think normal non tech saavy users dont bother much about this .

</comment><comment><USER153> Brilliant. So much for being able to use Facebook on a non-Android device.

</comment><comment><USER154> It seems that the actual problem is Android with their permission system.

</comment><comment><USER155> Messenger recently started killing my battery life so I uninstalled it.

</comment><comment><USER156> "Company makes product and decides how users should use it."

</comment><comment><USER157> Yuck. I guess I can't be reached by fb messenger, then.

</comment><comment><USER36> Previous long-time Facebook user here, but forgive my ignorance - what is Messenger? An instant message app I assume? How does this differ/improve upon the instant messaging built into every phone?

<comment><USER158> Messenger is a facebook instant message app.

It improves on what is already built into your phone because it hooks into all of your facebook contacts, which means full names, and pictures.

<comment><USER36> Not much of an improvement, IMHO, to warrant all this grief.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER159> Screw you FB!

</comment><comment><USER160> It's really sad to me to see a bunch of intelligent people here being led like sheep by Facebook (no, this isn't a sheeple post, hear me out)

Virtually everyone here complains "Facebook does XYZ really bad but I still use them because all my friends are there".

I have a solution. Why don't you get all your friends off there? Pick a platform that you really like and start evangelising. The only reason why Facebook has as much power as it does is because of user lock-in, but that use lock-in is only strong because no one fights it actively.

Example. A while ago, WhatsApp didn't have a webapp. Telegram did. I prefer typing on my laptop instead of mobile if I can. Therefore, I started evangelising from WhatsApp to Telegram. Now all my friends are on Telegram. (They didn't leave WhatsApp, but now they use Telegram between them). (BTW, I kind of regret this now that WhatsApp has a webapp AND encryption by default, but that's another story).

So, stop complaining and do something about it.

<comment><USER161> How did you make your friends use telegram instead just for you? I use iMessage with my best friend and my dad because it is my preferred way of communication (it is fairly secure, easy to use, and I can reply from my watch, Mac, iPad and iPhone, unlike any competitor except email). For everybody else I have to use what's app because they cannot be bothered to install an app just to contact me once a week (or some even once a month) and email (my second preferred method of communication) is too complicated, clumsy, old, or just too uncool for everybody to use (except for checking for that registration link on Instagram).

You cannot just move a large group of people to another platform if you don't have any authority over them (e.g. their boss) unless they want to switch on their own (because their previous method is too unreliable, inconvenient or expensive).

I, for one, would be happy if I can make my teacher believe that WhatsApp is not a good idea to contact me for various things regarding my final exam. The best way to reach me is always through email.

<comment><USER160> "Hey did you check out that app I asked you?"

"Hey, the other day I wanted to text you and it's so much more comfortable if I can type from my laptop, would you please install it? It's just like WhatsApp, you won't even see the difference."

"Hey, remember that app I told you about the other day? Turns out that the founder is this guy who cloned Facebook in Russia, and the government went after him and stole his company, how insane is that? He's now cloning WhatsApp, but better, could you please check it out?"

etc etc if there's a will there's a way

<comment><USER161> > "Hey did you check out that app I asked you?"

      - "Installing an app is always so complicated"
      - "Why not stick with WhatsApp. It works fine for me"

> "Hey, the other day I wanted to text you and it's so much more comfortable > if I can type from my laptop, would you please install it? It's just like > WhatsApp, you won't even see the difference."

"What's wrong with your phone?"

> "Hey, remember that app I told you about the other day? Turns out that the > founder is this guy who cloned Facebook in Russia, and the government went > after him and stole his company, how insane is that? He's now cloning > WhatsApp, but better, could you please check it out?"

"What's better? And why would I trust a Russian more then WhatsApp. I don't really think it is a good idea to install it"

I haven't even made up those answers, I've heard them one way or the other. For most people, their phone just has to work and unless they mean a lot to you, they won't really bother installing it. If most of your friends are tech savvy, then your chances are good they are curious to try it out, don't mind it at all, or even support you. But most just don't care and are afraid they break things if they installed a new app.

I can even fully understand their decision. A friend of mind decided to ditch WhatsApp altogether and now I can only call her because I'm not willing to pay 15¢ just for a normal text message. She only did it because she wanted to have to deal less with social media but I don't want to. I turn off notifications for WhatsApp every now and then if I don't want to get distracted but all in all, I ust WhatsApp for 95% of all my personal text conversations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER162> I have stopped using Facebook (Twitter and everything social) half a decade ago. I don't use messaging apps and turn on my phone only when I really need to.

Result: more free time to do interesting and productive things and people aren't bothering me as much. I have taken control of my life and I'm not being pushed around to do things based on notifications or desire for artificial status(likes, retweet, stars). Stop using these services that sell your privacy, control your communication, make hostile changes and in the end do not care about you.

<comment><USER28> How is HN not a social network? (I'm not being snarky, I'm just curious on your line of thinking here)

<comment> shawn-butler There is no network or linkage between users? And people are not allowed to post inane topics or messages.

Pretty basic.

<comment><USER28> How do you think the voting ring detection works?

Some users post contact info in their profile, so there is the possibility for messaging (email). Yes, there are policies, and structure and many good things - I'm not sure that means that HN isn't a social network of sorts?

I suppose it might boil down to a technicality, but I always read "social network" as a graph that describes how a group is connected - not as some strict technological definition. So a bunch of people that informally meet at a cafe to discuss politics, art and other topics can be described as a social network.

<comment> shawn-butler That is an implementation detail not a feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER163> Whoa, who would've thought that a multi-billion dollar company would ever make a decision in order to promote newer versions of their own software?!?! /s

The whole point of Messenger is to consolidate messaging infrastructure. Being able to glean customer interests from that is just a bonus. Mobile web app is horrendous, and they know it, this is the solution.

I agree that Facebook lacks that trust with people, but they have every right to try and make their platform better and more efficient, and don't necessarily deserve the knee-jerk "they're up to something!" like this.

</comment><comment><USER101> So after this and screwing with Instagram (removed API access to timeline 3rd party apps used and enabled global curated timeline only) I wonder what will they ruin with WhatsApp.

</comment><comment><USER164> I don't want notifications. I don't use FB to chat.

I'm totally happy with the web FB.

And, maybe I'm wrong, but it appears like the FB app using a crap-tonne of data in comparison with web.

Side benefit: FB app not following me around like a stalker.

</comment><comment><USER165> fb account deleted.. just now

</comment><comment><USER166> \- Spend $18bn to acquire Whatsapp's current and future users

\- Force people to download Facebook Messenger

\- ???

\- Profit?!

</comment><comment><USER167> Where I live, messaging using Facebook is the most effective way to communicate with my phone company, my ISP, etcetera.

That is the only reason I use Facebook messaging (I communicate with friends using other services) and one of the few reasons I still have a Facebook account.

Installing Facebook messenger app is too much just for this.</comment>


Audio: Superfeedr CEO talks PubSubHubbub, XMPP, Redis and the realtime web - <AUTHOR> http://thechangelog.com/post/1249379846/episode-0-3-7-pubsubhubbub-with-superfeedrs-julien-genes

<comment><USER2> Cool! I worked on implementing a Java impl of the Hub part of PuSH this summer. Haven't heard where it's gone yet...</comment>


Why You Should Download Firefox 3 Right Now - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Why_You_Should_Download_Firefox_3_Right_Now <comment><USER2> This is a piece of propaganda, don't waste your time. Moreover, FF3 is not yet available for download.

<comment><USER3> Yeah.. what's this with "Right now"? I suppose you could get the latest nightly (or go look up which nightly they've considered as the 3.0 final), but this is just shoddy journalism.

Slow news day at webmonkey?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Mac users will see buttons, scrollbars and tabs that finally look not just "Macish" but entirely Mac-native."

Absolutely NOT. The gradient up top is TERRIBLY wrong, the buttons don't follow design style, and the feel is overall one that's very cluttered, one that feels like a definite port.

Terrible article. If I was able to downvote I would.

<comment><USER5> I use GrApple Yummy - it's great. Looks just like Firefox, except with the Awesome Bar, and Delicious integration. w00t!

Obtain from: <http://www.takebacktheweb.org/>

<comment><USER4> Bit of a late follow-up, but - yeah, that's a superb theme.

At the same time, using Firefox doesn't FEEL right. It's not as polished as Safari by a long shot. That and MultiClutch go a long way to fixing the problem, but it's a problem that, as long as Safari is around, doesn't exactly need solving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't like FF3's "Awesome Bar" so I disabled it. I tried using it for a while, but noticed I mostly type in things like "n", "r", or "t" to get to news.ycombinator.com, reddit.com, or my own domain, respectively, and with the "Awesome Bar" this is removed and it actually takes me LONGER to browse, as I generally type in a letter or two of the URL and go to it directly.

<comment><USER7> Give it a day or two for the algorithm to stabilize. I had the same problem initially but it now works great for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> FireFox wants to get press by being the most downloaded software in a 24 hour period.

A gimmick hit for the browser wars.

</comment><comment><USER5> But. It's not out yet. Fools!

</comment><comment><USER9> I could give a few reasons why you should download Firefox 1.5.0 right now.</comment>


Is it Pokemon or Big Data? (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://pixelastic.github.io/pokemonorbigdata/ <comment><USER2> Protip: each of the things has a (occasionally humorous) description, so don't just blow past everything because you're excited to find a use for the 500 Pokémon you had memorized by heart ten years ago (no personal experience involved here at all /s).

<comment><USER3> I feel caught red handed

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Speaking of which… [https://www.expeditedssl.com/aws-in-plain- english](https://www.expeditedssl.com/aws-in-plain-english)

<comment><USER5> Is there are similar thing but for GCP? Or at least comparison of GCP and AWS with simple descriptions.

<comment><USER6> Yes there is!

[https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/map-aws-google-cloud- plat...](https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/map-aws-google-cloud-platform)

Disclaimer: I work at GCP (but didn't write that).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Or: Elf or prescription drug: [http://quizzes.howstuffworks.com/quiz/drug-or- tolkien-elf-qu...](http://quizzes.howstuffworks.com/quiz/drug-or-tolkien-elf- quiz)

As a side note - I would love to see something like that automatically generated (with LSTMs or), in the spirit of [http://karpathy.github.io/2015/05/21/rnn- effectiveness/](http://karpathy.github.io/2015/05/21/rnn-effectiveness/) (and example for generating names: [https://pytorch.org/tutorials/intermediate/char_rnn_generati...](https://pytorch.org/tutorials/intermediate/char_rnn_generation_tutorial.html)).

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually made this a little while ago for Dutch municipality names. Works quite well as even Dutch people get confused about which ones are real. [https://diasli.de/848](https://diasli.de/848)

<comment><USER8> 10/10 so far. Love the animations though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would be cool to have a score like how many times did you play and how many did you guess right.

<comment><USER10> Exactly what I was missing after 15~20 questions (and then I left)

Seemed easy at first (got the first 5 right), but I guess that was mostly luck because I got a lot of the next ones wrong.

Edit: being from France, pokemon here have different names, making the english names less recognizable (I never played the games anyway so that doesn't change much for me)

<comment><USER11> French here too but playing Pokemon Go in English. After a while I can recognize most names but I still think the French names are funnier. The translation team did a real good job. Also, a lot a English names are straight coming from Japanese (e.g. Zubat) which make use of some English in the first place, so there is a bit less creativity on this side.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Finally I get to put my Pokemon knowledge to use.

</comment><comment><USER13> Fun coincidence for MATLAB programmers out there:

[https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/numel.html](https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/numel.html)

[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Numel_(Pok%C3%A9mon)](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Numel_\(Pok%C3%A9mon\))

</comment><comment><USER14> I was thinking about naming some of my npm libraries after pokemons! But then found all of the good ones were already taken, so I switched to Spanish/Japanese words (I'm a Spaniard living in Tokyo)

</comment><comment><USER15> What happens when a big data project names itself after a Pokemon?!

<comment><USER16> The appropriate thing to do would be to mark both as correct and to mention the same in the response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ha, I love these. Shamelessly plugging this PWA I recently made that allows you to create your own: [https://partyquizzes.com](https://partyquizzes.com)

(Make your own at [https://partyquizzes.com/quizzes/create](https://partyquizzes.com/quizzes/create))

</comment><comment><USER17> This should probably have a year tag on it or something. The last commit was in 2016: [https://github.com/pixelastic/pokemonorbigdata](https://github.com/pixelastic/pokemonorbigdata) The brunt of the commits seem to be from 2015.

It has been posted multiple times under the same name before:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7683428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7683428)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622752](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622752)

<comment><USER18> I remember seeing this in 2015. Thank you for digging, my experience corroborates your findings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> That reminds me this [https://streamable.com/h7ck9](https://streamable.com/h7ck9)</comment>


How Tarsnap uses Amazon Web Services - <AUTHOR> http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2008-12-14-how-tarsnap-uses-aws.html

<comment><USER2> I'm just curious, do all the people using these kinds of paid services just have really tiny hard drives? To back up 1TB of data via this system would cost around $250 a month in storage and transfer charges, and that's assuming very good compression is happening. What am I missing? Or maybe I'm just not rich enough for $3,000 / year?

Or maybe you're just doing a subset of your data, in which case I don't see how snapshotting is such a big win. Nice to have, but not important in the least if you are just doing a small subset of your data. True, it saves a few pennies on transfer charges, but you could save that much by doing the upload to S3 yourself.

My other concern with this is that if the tarsnap server ever goes away, customers risk losing their data, since the server maintains the mapping of S3 objects to blobs. That's worrying. Assurances are not mechanisms.

<comment><USER3> > My other concern with this is that if the tarsnap server ever goes away, > customers risk losing their data, since the server maintains the mapping of > S3 objects to blobs. That's worrying. Assurances are not mechanisms.

Agreed. I use duplicity instead, which is a Free program that is similar to tarsnap. It backs up to S3, but uses many fewer PUTs (since archives are several megabytes).

Anyway, a full backup of my homedir (minus music) costs me about $1.40 a month to store (with incremental backups every night). A small price to pay knowing that if my laptop blows up, I can be right back where I started in just a few hours. (Or if I delete a file accidentally, it is back in seconds.)

<http://duplicity.nongnu.org/>

<comment><USER4> I also won't store my backups in anything but my own S3 buckets (they are encrypted, privacy is not the issue). Is duplicity stable in your opinion? I am usually one to use alpha/beta software etc. but this is a long term need. I am a big rdiff-backup fan, this looks like a good alternative to my current strategy.

My current strategy is a little lame but works quite well: rsync daily to my home server and about once or twice a week an EC2 instance is fired up with elastic block store attachment and the home server does rdiff-backup to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tarsnap is really wonderful. I've been using it for about a month now and it's really simple. From your perspective, you're simply creating tar archives. No fuss, no muss.

On the tarsnap side, it makes sure not to duplicate storage or bandwidth for duplicate parts. Anytime you want to get a specific backup back, you just reference it by name. You can list the available archives. It's all encrypted. Pricing is based on what you actually use (rather than being rounded) which makes it ideal for small things as you can pay fractions of a cent.

It's definitely something to look into.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great post! I don't understand the paragraph about the cost of the PUTs and GETs though. The saving you get by batching writes seems marginal. Can you give some numbers?

<comment><AUTHOR> The average block size the tarsnap server sees is about 30 kB (the tarsnap client tries to produce blocks of 64 kB on average, but then it compresses them individually before sending them to the server). This means that for every GB uploaded, there are about 33 thousand blocks.

S3 PUTs cost $0.01 per thousand PUTs, so writing each of the blocks as an individual S3 object would cost $0.33 / GB for PUTs (plus the normal $0.10 / GB for bandwidth).

<comment><USER3> Just out of curiosity, why such small blocks?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are several advantages and disadvantages to different block sizes; but most significantly, larger blocks would make tarsnap less efficient at identifying duplicate data in the (very common) case where part of a file is modified. In the end it came down to weighing all the factors and picking a value which worked well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting. Do you have an estimate of how tarsnap compares to rsync in terms of bandwidth in the typical case that only a few files have been modified?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tarsnap is more efficient than rsync in that case, because rsync has a significant index overhead (sending a list of files, and sending a list of blocks for each file) while the tarsnap client works locally to identify new data and only uploads the new bits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You mention that it's more expensive than JungleDisk, but you don't say why it's better.

<comment><AUTHOR> _You mention that it's more expensive than JungleDisk_

No I don't. Tarsnap isn't more expensive than JungleDisk overall -- yes, the bandwidth and storage costs more, but tarsnap doesn't have per-request costs, a fixed monthly service charge, or an up-front cost for the software. For some people, tarsnap will be more expensive, certainly; but for many others tarsnap will be cheaper.

 _you don't say why it's better_

Not in this blog post, no -- this post was about how tarsnap uses Amazon Web Services. :-)

Details about why I think tarsnap is an amazingly superior backup system are at [http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2008-11-10-tarsnap-public- be...](http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2008-11-10-tarsnap-public-beta.html)</comment></comment>


Sorry About Your Startup - <AUTHOR> http://tracks.ranea.org/post/92833649088/sorry-about-your-startup

<comment><USER2> "Then don't put it online. We love you, but we've heard it already."

I don't come across much unheard of articles on the internet as it is. Why so critical of this subsection of articles that you're going as far as telling them not to put their stuff online?

Read it like what it is - a blog article. Its not a technical paper or a journal submission that should be rejected on grounds of incorrect assumptions/conclusions, error in experimenting or something that's previously done.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Next time hire an accountant."

They were disrupting the IRS!</comment>


Ask HN: Do you know any framework to write content with a clear structure? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a framework or a helpful questions list to make sure I can lay out the information I have in mind in an understandable manner for the reader. In my mind, this all is pretty clear but when I start writing it gets difficult. Can you advise me something to deal with this struggle please? <comment><USER2> Fractally.

Write down your main point in a single sentence. Write down three (ish) supporting or illustrating points in one sentence each. Write a sentence explaining how those points support the main point.

Now, for every sentence you have, write down three or so supporting points and another sentence explaining how those support the original sentence.

Repeat until you've reached the word count or level of depth/detail you desire.

<comment><USER3> A _long_ time ago, there was an "outline processor" called ThinkTank that helped you write in that style. I don't know if there's any modern equivalent.

<comment><USER2> MS Word has an outline mode that I've always used for that. On Mac, there's OmniOutliner, though it's expensive and I'm not sure how well it works for collapsing all the items into prose. You might also be able to make Scrivener's outline mode work that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Read some good books on writing. [https://www.amazon.com/Style-Lessons- Clarity-Grace-11th/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Style-Lessons-Clarity- Grace-11th/dp/0321898680) or older edition is quite good.

</comment><comment><USER5> Use FreePlane and make a mind map of how you define your information. Then change the layout of the mind map [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyMXjA_6yvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyMXjA_6yvI)</comment>


BBC news website gets a redesign - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/online/e-business/news/index.cfm?newsid=21034&utm_source=ycombinator&utm_medium=sb&utm_content=anguyen&utm_campaign=sb

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always thought the BBC was the pinnacle of a good news website - and from the snapshots of the new one, it looks like it's improved itself once again! Well done BBC.</comment>


Girls Who Code Founder to Ivanka Trump: Don't Use My Story - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/02/technology/girls-who-code-reshma-saujani-ivanka-trump/index.html <comment><USER2> It's odd that Ivanka Trump is using this story as inspiration while her father's administration (of which she is a part) is working to end Michelle Obama's "Let Girls Learn" initiative. It does seem a bit insincere.

With that being said, Saujani's tweet read a bit rude. Open-minded discussion is key to moving forward with understanding. We'll never get anywhere if we always shut down those that we don't agree with on certain issues.

<comment><USER3> "With that being said, Saujani's tweet read a bit rude. Open-minded discussion is key to moving forward with understanding. We'll never get anywhere if we always shut down those that we don't agree with on certain issues."

Exactly. On top of it, the complicit thing is nonsense when talking about a daughter of an authoritarian, barely-negotiable father whose the President of the U.S.. She's better off trying to carefully reign him in behind closed doors while endorsing or funding good things he'd ignore. There's scenarios where a family member might turn up the heat to try to leverage out some concession. Maybe she could get those concessions. We don't see most of her critics taking risks that huge, though. It's always easier to ask someone else to take the Big Fall while making smaller, steady sacrifices if any at all given some activism feels very rewarding.

I imagine Girls Who Code is in the latter category of putting work in, getting some stress due to resistance, and with steady rewards (esp appreciation) from the Girls Who Code. Totally unlike pissing off a dictator in a quasi-police state regularly in public. Most people don't like anxiety or terror all day as payment for whatever popularity that might bring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> imo a pretty poor way to protest the administration.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some well designed wiki(s)? - <AUTHOR> Hello folks,<p>I am looking for some interesting, great examples of wiki. I am working on designing a wiki and would love to understand how can I come up with a great structure, any resources/ideas will be appreciated. Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Bookstack

If you mean by content:

Arch Linux Wiki

Memory Alpha Star Trek Fan Wiki

There's also Rationalwiki

There is also a strange one which is about horror stories, but I forgot the name</comment>


Mother Teresa's Letter to the US Supreme Court on Roe V. Wade - <AUTHOR> https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/nvp/roe/mothertheresa_roe.html <comment><USER2> She was not exactly a good person, nor an expert on ethics, or science. Why is her uninformed opinion relevant at all, much less on HN?

<comment><USER3> Interesting montage: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzIPBRnYHQk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzIPBRnYHQk)

Could there be something to her express "everyday" sentiments re: how we ought relate to our fellow humans and to the divine?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxkWJ9xF27g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxkWJ9xF27g)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rando on YC: nah. Abortion is good actually.

Guess that's a draw.</comment>


I can't decide if this is a good deal - <AUTHOR> https://worldwidejamie.com <comment><USER2> It's an ad for a wordpress agency with an editorialized title. There is no deal presented.

</comment><comment><USER3> The account was created just to post this spam.</comment>