MAD NEWS: Ads are finally coming to Facebook Messenger

Facebook must really like the revenue that it’s getting from ads on the Facebook Messenger home screen, because after a limited beta in Thailand and Australia, the company has decided to roll out the advertising option worldwide. You’ll likely see the flow of your home screen broken up by sponsored ads before the end of 2017. And just like the ads you see on Facebook itself and Instagram, they’ll be targeted and specific to you.

Messenger product lead Stan Chudnovsky tells VentureBeat that it's a simple matter of income: advertising is "how we're going to be making money right now." There are "other business models" under consideration, he says, but they all tie into ads. In short: don't expect Facebook to have second thoughts as long as it's making billions of dollars in profit from ads.

While Facebook is fine with ads kicking you to a website, it would prefer that ads lead to chats with businesses. You're more likely to respond to an ad if it takes you to another conversation inside the chat app, Chudnovsky says. The question is whether or not people will simply roll with the changes or balk at them. It's entirely likely that people will just shrug and move on, but there is a chance this could steer some users toward ad-free alternatives like Messenger Lite on Android to hopefully avoid a lot of this.