People Aren’t Happy With Facebook’s Annoying New Feature, ‘Messenger Day’

Last week Facebook added a new feature to its Messenger platform. Called Day, it closely mimics Snapchat’s signature Story feature, but many users are resenting Facebook over the move.

One of the critics is M.G. Siegler of GV, who published on his blog a post titled “ShatChat,” which laments Facebook’s decision to copy Snapchat—who turned down a $3 billion offer from Mark Zuckerberg in 2014 and is now a growing public company and potential competitor—at the expense of a superior user experience.

“Messenger is fundamentally about chatting; it’s a utility,” he writes. “Photos may be additive, but they’re not core. You could try to pivot your service into making them core, but that doesn’t mean you should.”

Siegler, who describes Day as “entirely interruptive and not at all seamless,” believes Facebook “hates” and “fears” Snap, which is now valued at around $30 billion. But Facebook not only has more than 1.2 billion active users on Messenger alone, the company also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. It may fear Snap, but probably not as much as Snap fears Facebook.

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