Consolidation isn't very popular these days; first Facebook split off its IM into Messenger, then Foursquare shovelled its check-in feature into Swarm and now Path is putting messaging into Path Talk. It could be because they found people who used the app solely for this purpose or it could be another way to boost visibility.

You see, Path is a lovely idea – private ‘micro social network’ – but it’s not widely used. Path Talk, however, is an all-in-one messaging app that can replace SMS and Facebook messaging. An interesting forthcoming feature will allow you to directly message restaurants for bookings. https://path.com/talk