Facebook has stopped supporting the ability to subscribe to Messenger without an account on the largest social network.
In the past, new users using Messenger or Messenger Lite could choose to use their phone number instead of creating a new Facebook account.
So if you are new to Messenger, you will notice that you no longer need a Facebook account to chat with your friends.
The Facebook started supporting the ability to subscribe to Messenger countries social network account in June 2015, first in the US, Canada, Peru and Venezuela.
This change is likely to help unify various Facebook messaging services, such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. The New York Times reported in January that the technical infrastructure used by the three services would be integrated, redefining the way more than three billion people around the world communicate.
WhatsApp has over 1,5 billion monthly active users, while Messenger and Instagram have over 1,3 billion and 1 billion, respectively.
In a statement in early 2019, CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined Facebook's plan for a shift to encrypted, ephemeral messaging.
"Users should be able to use any of our applications to reach their friends and should be able to communicate with other networks easily and securely." mentioned on the blog.
"We intend to start by making it possible to send messages to your contacts using any of our services and then to extend this interoperability to SMS."
