Last week, we heard rumors of Faceobok planning to combine its messaging services on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger into a single, combined messaging system. The integrated system will introduce end-to-end encryption for all the platforms, while letting people message others from a single app.

The apps will continue to operate as standalone apps, though you will be able to message someone on Facebook from the Instagram app, for example. The idea here is to make it easier for people to communicate with others on the Facebook “ecosystem” securely.

And as good as that sounds, it’s likely Facebook will ruin the experience across all apps, especially on Instagram and WhatsApp. The company has previously shown that it is capable of pushing things to users that they don’t really want, utilizing growth-hack techniques that simply push users off instead.

Thankfully though, that might not happen anytime soon. The Verge reports that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said on the company’s recent earning calls that “the integration that we’re thinking about, we’re really early in thinking through this.” And that “there’s a lot more we need to figure out.”

Zuckerberg reportedly insisted that the if Facebook does end up doing this, the merger won’t likely show up till 2020 or later. And that’s a good sign for sure, but it is still likely Facebook will go ahead with the plans, at least to a certain extent, to combine its popular platforms like Instagram with others like the core Facebook service. Facebook really, really wants to get its hands on all the teen userbase, and Instagram is the key to that.

And considering Instagram’s original founders left the company late last year, things aren’t looking too good for Instagram’s future.

Tagged with Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhastApp