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Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?

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11–20 of 52 posts

Re: Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?

#11
post #6
post #3

The sad thought crossed my mind: people using Whatsapp to have last calls with family members dying of e.g. COVID, trying terribly to get onto telegram or something but having no luck getting through since everything was degraded. Kinda ruined the few hours of fun for me.

I seriously doubt those people couldn't just call normally instead

International calls might be too expensive unfortunately.

The phone call might be right before ventilation rather than last words too.

Re: Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?

#13
post #6
post #3

The sad thought crossed my mind: people using Whatsapp to have last calls with family members dying of e.g. COVID, trying terribly to get onto telegram or something but having no luck getting through since everything was degraded. Kinda ruined the few hours of fun for me.

I seriously doubt those people couldn't just call normally instead

In many circumstances, WhatsApp works better -- like, a lot better -- than normal calls. Also it's often subsidized.

They probably could have paid extra money out of pocket to call normally and get a substandard experience.

Re: Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?

#14
post #6
post #3

The sad thought crossed my mind: people using Whatsapp to have last calls with family members dying of e.g. COVID, trying terribly to get onto telegram or something but having no luck getting through since everything was degraded. Kinda ruined the few hours of fun for me.

I seriously doubt those people couldn't just call normally instead

Normal telecom services do not offer free international calls or video conferencing like WhatsApp. You also would need a sim card and phone plan. WhatsApp just requires wifi.

Re: Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?

#15
post #3

The sad thought crossed my mind: people using Whatsapp to have last calls with family members dying of e.g. COVID, trying terribly to get onto telegram or something but having no luck getting through since everything was degraded. Kinda ruined the few hours of fun for me.

I imagine that developing countries were affected the worse, although that particular scenario is sad, I can't help but think of all the lost revenue that families/small businesses suffered because this outage.

Re: Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?

#18
I think the most surprising thing to me in these comments is the lack of awareness of how real people in the real world communicate with each other in countries outside of the west.

At the end of the day, Whatsapp is reliable communication infrastructure and it does get used for all sorts of critical things. It's also a backbone for commerce in many parts of the world. Believe it or not, not every country has billions to invest in robust, secure IT infrastructure.

Re: Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?

#19
post #3

The sad thought crossed my mind: people using Whatsapp to have last calls with family members dying of e.g. COVID, trying terribly to get onto telegram or something but having no luck getting through since everything was degraded. Kinda ruined the few hours of fun for me.

People dying of COVID are usually heavily sedated with a tube down their tracheae. They don’t have last words, they either get better or die.

Assuming you have never faced the above situation (and I pray you don't). It goes something like this:

1. on call nurse txts "its time"

2. you confirm that he/she will initiate a call in 20 mins over whatsapp/viber/messenger

3. The nurse holds up the ipad over your loved one's face

4.

Re: Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?

#20
post #5

If your life gets negatively affected by whatsapp being unavailable, order a new life instead. At least install Signal, Telegram et al and wean everyone else out of fb-wa.

You really were unable to come up with a single example of how this outage could have impacted people’s lives in drastic ways?

I invite you to see life through other people’s eyes every once in a while. I promise it’ll be worth it.

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