Updated. Thanks!

I agree. It seems to me that Facebook's Messenger and WhatsApp are fundamentally incompatible. With Messenger, you can open Facebook/messenger.com/your phone and see all your messages. With WhatsApp, you have no such option, as messages are not stored remotely.

For the end-user, the most "seamless" way to integrate is to adopt Messenger's approach, which will be a security loss for WhatsApp unfortunately. As other users mentioned, there is also the possibility that the end-to-end encryption will lose its default status.

> possibility that the end-to-end encryption will lose its default status

The article says otherwise.

Oops, you're right. I hope it happens.

This has to be the biggest clickbait I have seen in a while. HN title should reflect this because that changes interpretation completely.

It is a shame that HN does not have some system where you

- mark a title as clickbait

- either suggest an alternate title, or accept one from a list of previously submitted alternate titles

When enough karma has gathered behind a title the system can automatically replace it.

I have seen many titles on HN reported as "clickbait" which are changed eventually to reflect better the actual content.

I'm not sure if it is done my moderators or it just depends on the original poster to change it.

On the other hand, it is the exact title of the article being linked....

I disagree.

I feel a lot of the comments decrying "clickbait" actually disagree with the opinion or the underlying assumptions the title conveys.

(Such as in this case the question whether or not this is a simple decision over technical details or a broader shift in strategy with consequences for the users)

I fear this feature could be easily abused by people removing the connotation of the title in the name of making it more "objective" - but by doing this, actually throwing out the reason why the article was posted.

Integrate seems like the right word. From the article, you'll be able to send messages between the apps. That's a pretty big deal.

If the headline had been "combine," then I agree it would've been clickbait.

> After the changes take effect, a Facebook user could send an encrypted message to someone who has only a WhatsApp account, for example.

That smells like a little more than just infrastructure. More like product integration, with their UIs retaining the old.

I'm not convinced. I can't imagine the founders of both companies abruptly leaving and "contentious staff meetings" occurring about a simple decision to remove redundancies in infrastructure.

Edit:

Also note that the article describes a lot of changes that go far beyond infrastructure - notably, that users can communicate across services and that user profiles from different services might be matched. If done, they would have a lot more far-reaching relevance than technical details.

No, read to the end. The changes will have effects beyond infrastructure.