> they were intentionally crippling Facebook Messenger at one point [in a browser]

They were/did. I was using Messenger Lite for a bit which was ok, but they killed that and the mobile browser mode.

I still need FB for some events and contacts, but I refuse to have the fat messenger app installed so now I end up using the damn thing in desktop mode which is ... painful.

All I seem to see in my feed these days is "suggested for you" so it's a lot less addictive than it was back in the day. Not sure why they're so determined to drive the user base away, but that does seem to be the plan.