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Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

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Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#61

Post by gruez »

robbedpeter wrote: post #59
gruez wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We did focus on making the services accessible and affordable. Then phone providers and ISPs took the goverment funds and went "nah" 1. I hear this narrative a lot. is there more to this? I find it hard to believe that the government gave phone providers/ISPs $$$ no strings attached. 2. giving $$$ to companies to expand their infrastructure make sense to increase accessibility, but doesn't to make it more affordable…

https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-psc-r... The major providers are notorious for not upgrading their infrastructure. The bizarre decision to "punish" centurylink by giving them $91 million is par for the course. The absurd definition of broadband used by government means centurylink got $91 million and all they had to do was keep up with dsl capabilities. You'd hope that much money would get fibe…

>all they had to do was keep up with dsl capabilities

The terms of the settlement are bizarre, but there does appear to be strings attached to the money, contrary to what you claimed.

>CenturyLink will receive more than $91 million over the next six years to deploy 10 megabit-per-second download and 1 megabit-per-second upload broadband to 33,000 high-cost rural locations in Montana.

Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#62

Post by timmytokyo »

runawaybottle wrote: post #2

The main issue with WhatsApp as the primary platform of communication is that it’s exclusive. You can’t actually switch to Signal and continue with business because you’d need everyone to switch with you. Tech has yet to go through it’s ‘industrialization’ phase where one of the main advents was replaceable/interchangeable parts. WhatsApp cannot be pointed to another network, it’s total vendor lock-in. Today happened…

Regulations need to focus on forcing these Internet monopolies to be interoperable.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...

Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#63

Post by toast0 »

jbotz wrote: post #23
azangru wrote: post #16

Why is the conclusion in that tweet "the billionth reason to break down and regulate Facebook" rather than "the billionth reason not to use whatsapp as the de facto phone and text messaging platform"?

Because it isn't a question of individual choice. I use Signal as much as possible, but here in Brazil it seems WhatsApp/Facebook has some deal with all the cellular operators by which the a) give customers "unlimited WhatsApp usage" that doesn't count against their 3 or 5 GB/month internet usage quotas, and b) give WhatsApp traffic preference when their networks are congested, meaning that sometimes Signal messages…

I worked at WhatsApp until 2019 and worked on technical stuff for the WhatsApp part of the zero-rating deals. Part A is definitely part of that, but AFAIK, your part B, network prioritization was never part of the deal.

Facebook does a lot of network peering though, and has PoPs in Brazil, so there's some potential that Signal goes over transit and WhatsApp goes over peering, but peering is not (or was not, when I was there) a requirement for zero rating. I think AWS may peer in Brazil as well?

WhatsApp likely works better than Signal on congested networks because of the protocol design, timeout length, and DNS fallbacks. These are things Signal could improve on. If your network is so congested that packets are delayed 30-60 seconds and DNS always times out, I expect WhatsApp to still work, but not a whole lot else. That's solvable for other services, but it takes time and determination and accepting the use case as valid and important. Of course, all that and WhatsApp was still inaccessible for a significant amount of time today.

Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#64

Post by gruez »

aperrien wrote: post #60
gruez wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We did focus on making the services accessible and affordable. Then phone providers and ISPs took the goverment funds and went "nah" 1. I hear this narrative a lot. is there more to this? I find it hard to believe that the government gave phone providers/ISPs $$$ no strings attached. 2. giving $$$ to companies to expand their infrastructure make sense to increase accessibility, but doesn't to make it more affordable…

Ars Technica has a lot of reports about this, if you wish to learn more about it: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/11/big-telcos-slam-... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/comca... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/06/monticello-appea... https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/09/most-... https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/lawsuit-comcast-... https://arstechnic…

> Ars Technica has a lot of reports about this, if you wish to learn more about it:

with all due respect, your links don't seem to be relevant. I skimmed the first few and none of them look related to the question of "did the government give phone providers/ISPs money with no strings attached?"

>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/11/big-telcos-slam-...

appears to mainly talk about unbundling rather than whether strings are attached to government grants/subsidies. at the end there's discussion about them wanting to receive grants similar to south korea, but doesn't say anything about the actual terms of the money that was given.

>https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/comca...

talks about how bad broadband coverage is, but nothing about the conditions attached to government funding

>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/06/monticello-appea...

talks about municipal ISP, not about government funding

>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/isps-reminded-to...

Comes close but seems to be isolated to a single entity, whereas everybody seems to think all the major players are doing it. Is AT&T taking the money and not spending it on broadband, in contravention of the terms of the grant? If so, was there an investigation substantiating this? Or was it simply a case of people expecting them to spend it on gigabit fiber but instead they spent it on copper lines for rural residents?

Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#65

Post by zarzavat »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #50
Johnny555 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "accessible"? I can call anywhere in the USA for free, and its $0.01/minute to call an overseas relative, yet I almost never call.

Accessible would be the mobile networks allowing people to call overseas for $0.01 per minute. I would not dare try to call an international number via ATT/Verizon/T-Mobile outside of Canada/Mexico, because I would expect to pay at least $10 for the call if not more. I do not know where one would get $0.01 per minute international calls from the US, but it is most likely not as easy as an app on your smartphone.

Phone calls are essentially dead technology, kept alive by people who can't or won't install an app. Thus the price is whatever squeezes out the most revenue out of the residual users until the well runs dry.

In some countries this process is happening faster than in others.

Entire economies have been built on the principle that the price of a call or message is 0 and you only pay for data used (if any). That is the future that is coming, even for the US, but it might take a few more decades there.

Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#66

Post by pishpash »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #50
Johnny555 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "accessible"? I can call anywhere in the USA for free, and its $0.01/minute to call an overseas relative, yet I almost never call.

Accessible would be the mobile networks allowing people to call overseas for $0.01 per minute. I would not dare try to call an international number via ATT/Verizon/T-Mobile outside of Canada/Mexico, because I would expect to pay at least $10 for the call if not more. I do not know where one would get $0.01 per minute international calls from the US, but it is most likely not as easy as an app on your smartphone.

That's on top of paying for the internet itself. You must be young. If international calls are what you are looking for, calling cards and prepaid phones have been easy and cheap since a decade before these messaging apps. Then there was Skype and desktop messaging, and VOIP.

Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#67

Post by sneak »

This is an accident, and in peacetime.

Relying on WhatsApp for anything important (like your business) is madness, and I hope this serves as your wake-up call that giving the US government and a giant US ad network veto power over your basic personal and professional communications is not a good choice.

Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#69

Post by sneak »

LuciusVerus wrote: post #31
jbotz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it isn't a question of individual choice. I use Signal as much as possible, but here in Brazil it seems WhatsApp/Facebook has some deal with all the cellular operators by which the a) give customers "unlimited WhatsApp usage" that doesn't count against their 3 or 5 GB/month internet usage quotas, and b) give WhatsApp traffic preference when their networks are congested, meaning that sometimes Signal messages…

Yes, plus it's pointless trying to get my family to use Signal - they don't want to download an additional app to talk to me.

They will have to if you delete your WA account.

Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

#70

Post by chrismcb »

DantesKite wrote: post #48
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is "other people". I'd like to use irc as a messaging platform, but almost noone uses it anymore. If all your friends and family use only whatsapp, you have no choice.

What are the benefits of using irc as a messaging platform?

Other than the other users? I haven't figured it out, as other services offer better experiences. I guess it is the openess around irc.
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