What is happening in China offers clues to not only how Facebook may carry out its shift, but how the internet more broadly might change. Many of Silicon Valleys tech giants are dependent today on online advertising to make enough money to keep growing and innovating on new services.
But WeChat, which has 1.1 billion monthly active users, shows that other models particularly those based on payments and commerce can support massive digital businesses.
Mr. Zuckerberg didnt elaborate much this week on how the change toward private messaging would affect Facebooks business, which relies on people publicly sharing posts to be able to serve them targeted advertisements.
Because payments is already tied into the messaging service, people can easily order meal deliveries, book hotels, hail ride-sharing cars and pay their bills.
One sign that Facebook has been thinking about payments is its work on a new crypto coin that is meant to let people send money to contacts on their messaging systems.
To make Facebook a private messaging product, Mr. Zuckerberg may have a lot else to learn from Allen Zhang, the creator of WeChat.
She added: Facebook is trying to seek a balance between a public square and a private space in an increasingly polarizing society.