Meta hasn’t provided any clear reason as to why it’s now changing course three years later. However, it’s likely the reversal could be to avoid regulatory consequences of the EU’s Digital Markets Act, which aims to keep companies from holding monopoly power by favoring their own services. It also includes requirements for large companies to include compatibility between messaging platforms.
...Won't this potentially make the last part even more complicated in terms of messaging platform compatibility compliance though...? 🤔
Then again, it seems like it would make much more sense to consolidate all their chat/messaging services into WhatsApp anyway and deal with compliance that way.
They'll still be technically interoperable. I'm guessing this is purely a way for them to split the userbase on paper in an attempt to pass under the threshold for the count.