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Thoughts on MSN Messenger in general and its comparison to Facebook and Instagram

I know that MSN Messenger is something from a very long time ago and that the world has moved on from it but below are the thoughts that I have about it and I wanted to ask what you all think regarding all of this?

I starting using MSN in 2001 which is when I was introduced to it and first found out and knew about it. I think I last used it in the summer of 2010.

After that I guess I just used Facebook chat a lot more than MSN that I stopped logging on MSN.

According to Wikipedia, MSN was discontinued in 2013. Although I’m largely surprised it still existed in 2011 and 2012 due to the popularity of Facebook chat in those years.

Although I have to say that during MSN’s heyday in the 2000s, I would have never thought that it would ever be discontinued. At that time I used it so regularly that it was such a normal, regular and often daily feature of life.

Even now I can’t believe that it doesn’t exist anymore. Yet on the other hand, to some degree partly because it has been 10 years since it was discontinued (and 13 years since I last personally used it), it is also hard to believe that it actually once existed and was such a normal and regular feature of many peoples lives.

To a large degree these days people use Instagram and Facebook to communicate with people which they previously used MSN Messenger for. Yet for some reason MSN Messenger feels unique and different. Whilst Facebook Messenger and Instagram are not completely identical and are not 100% similar to each other, they seem very different to MSN.

For one thing, MSN Messenger was only ever used on desktop computers and laptops and people only either used it at home or public places like Internet cafes, airport lounges, hotel lounges and other such places and never used it randomly whilst being in a shopping mall or walking on the pavements in public etc. On the other hand, people use Facebook Messenger and Instagram on their desktop computers and laptops as well as on their phones both at home and randomly when walking about in public. Whilst smartphones existed in the MSN days they were not mainstream and never had an app for MSN but as we all know smartphones have an app for Instagram and for Facebook Messenger.

I feel that the days of MSN Messenger were simpler times or at least different times to now. It kind of feels like a bygone era.