Using Messenger without Facebook account now impossible, like old times

Facebook befriended controversy long time ago. Due to disputes surrounding its birth, the company had to pay $21.25 million in cash and shares as compensation. The Cambirdge Analytica scandal was a humongous setback for the multinational company.

Leaving controversies aside, Messenger is another popular application from Facebook with more than a billion installs on Google Play. As you might already know, it lets you send and receive messages to people using Facebook services.

When the service first went live, it used to function as a complementary one. Meaning, you couldn’t use Messenger without having an account on Facebook. However, they removed this imperativeness about four and half years ago.

So, people started using Messenger as a standalone application using the “Not on Facebook?” option with their phone number as the login id. It was actually a blessing for millions who didn’t want to swim into the depths of primary Facebook application.

Guess what? They have silently removed this feature and now you need a Facebook account to use Messenger. It came to our notice after laying our eyes on a couple of Reddit posts. Have a look at them below.

Facebook has silently removed the ability to use Messenger with a phone number
Here it is, confirmation straight from their Help Center:
Can I sign up for Messenger if I don’t have a Facebook account?
No. You’ll need to create a Facebook account to use Messenger.
It was nice while it lasted, but now I can’t login to my Facebook-less Messenger account since it keeps telling me my account is restricted. So I’m dead in the water, basically.
(Source)

So yeah, you can see the official confirmation on the Help Center. Interestingly, the sign up screen on the Lite app says using it wont end up creating an account and redirects you to a Join Facebook page.

Nonetheless, it seems like you can keep on using Messenger even after deactivating your Facebook account. Then again, going through that route doesn’t resemble the way you use the application via your phone number.

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