On a serious note I flirted with installing Messenger several times and couldn't go through with it after facing all the app permissions.
As a platform I wonder if this will follow the same path as the Facebook Games/Apps platform. Rampant use, rise of at least one game company (Zynga), then gradual but consistent desertion.
As a service for businesses, this is interesting and only time will tell how threatening the move is for existing customer support/communications apps. The deciding factor will be how conducive Facebook's network is to customer/brand interaction and if they can be a place for both personal and commercial interactions.
I agree with your stance on Messenger, yet I have found Cyanogen's Privacy Guard more than satisfying to limit Messenger's "spying" powers.
Outside of the US(?) I don't think that this has got much chance of taking off. The legal / data privacy ramifications of support knowing a customer's fb profile and all the information contained therein are something I find quite difficult to quantify.
As far as I've heard (no numbers) the games platform is still fairly popular - which was a surprise to me because I've not seen any games in my feed for years. Apparently this is because facebook realised how annoying it was for non-gamers to get game spam, so they automatically hide the gaming widgets from people who avoid using them.
(It is possible that your view of "gradual but consistent desertion" is accurate, just pointing out that it seemed like that to me too, but things are not always as they seem)
On a serious note I flirted with installing Messenger several times and couldn't go through with it after facing all the app permissions.
As a platform I wonder if this will follow the same path as the Facebook Games/Apps platform. Rampant use, rise of at least one game company (Zynga), then gradual but consistent desertion.
As a service for businesses, this is interesting and only time will tell how threatening the move is for existing customer support/communications apps. The deciding factor will be how conducive Facebook's network is to customer/brand interaction and if they can be a place for both personal and commercial interactions.