The State of Facebook Instant Articles

Facebook has just removed Instant Articles support from Messenger. I don't use Messenger that much and, frankly, I hadn't even noticed Messenger also supported Instant Articles.

But why did Facebook drop support from Messenger after just over a year? I'm guessing Instant Articles just aren't popular enough and the Messenger team wants to concentrate their efforts on something else. Initially I liked the idea of Instant Articles and the fact that it's built on RSS technology. But building a separate feed just for Facebook felt weird, and the open web lover in me was a bit irritated.

And I guess I wasn't the only one to be irritated. Instant Articles were targeted at major news publishers and I guess they had their concerns as well. Most media houses are struggling with online media these days but apparently Instant Articles weren't the answer publishers we're looking for.