Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:41 AM UTC

pishpash wrote: post #66

lotsofpulp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I kept calling cards in my backpack to make my international calls before WhatsApp and mobile data came along. But they are certainly not easy compared to WhatsApp, nor “cheap” compared to free.

Paying for the internet is not a consideration since people will be paying for the internet anyway.

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

#72

Post by dmead » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:42 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #64

aperrien wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wheth…

the links are relevant. the isps took billions and didn't expand municipal wifi when promised nor did they lower costs for calls.

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

#73

Post by dilyevsky » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:51 AM UTC

Jugurtha wrote: post #68

How does the author come to the conclusion to break Facebook down and regulate it after the outage ? There are a lot of power outages in the world by companies that are regulated, sometimes even state-owned.

Maybe the intent is to have it down more often?

I think you’re assuming these empty moralizing statements aren’t just made for the clicks…

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

#74

Post by perryizgr8 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:55 AM UTC

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #38

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Shouldn’t we focus on making those services accessible and affordable? " This. If calls and international calls were acessible, whatsapp wouldnt exist

> This. If calls and international calls were acessible, whatsapp wouldnt exist Whatsapp offers a whole lot more: read receipts, group chats, images and video, voice notes, location sharing, a web client (albeit a quite limited one), and it has a generally pretty good UX/UI (much better than Androids stock messaging app). Regardless of the economics, on a technical level calling/texting isn't competitive with Whatsap…

Whatsapp also provides a very nice payment feature in India. I use it very often.

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

#75

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:59 AM UTC

Was talking about this with a friend today, and I think this incident highlights why I sometimes get really depressed about my career and technology.

I'm a Gen X-er, and I started my career in the late 90s. Before that I was a ham radio operator in junior high and HS (back when they had Morse code tests!). I remember the heady euphoria around the Internet then, and the vision of "tech utopia" was certainly the dominant one: the Internet would bring a "democratization of information" where anyone with a computer could connect to the Internet, publish a website, and communicate with people across the world. Really cool new services came online frequently. I still remember the first time I used Google, and at the time I was blown away by how good it was ("like magic!" I said) because the results were so much better than other search engines of the time.

But these days, the older I get the more and more I feel like tech is having a negative impact on both society at large and me personally. In the 90s we all thought the Internet would lead to a decentralization of power, but literally the exact opposite happened. Sure, telcos sucked, but there were tons of them spread across all corners of the globe. Now there is 1 single megacorp that a sizable portion of humanity depends on for phone/text communication.

It just makes me sad. Sure, there are pluses to tech I'm ignoring here, but I just think that how reality turned out so 180 from the expectations of the late 90s is what really hurts.

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

#76

Post by mrpopo » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 3:59 AM UTC

Jugurtha wrote: post #68

How does the author come to the conclusion to break Facebook down and regulate it after the outage ? There are a lot of power outages in the world by companies that are regulated, sometimes even state-owned.

I think the point of breaking down Facebook into smaller entities is to reduce centralization of operations, and thus the impact of single-point failures. The same conclusion should be made of a giant state-owned company.

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

#77

Post by paxys » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:04 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #64

aperrien wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wheth…

I don't know why you are so hung up on the "strings attached" part. It doesn't matter how many conditions the government imposes if no one is held accountable for actually achieving them.

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

#78

Post by Jugurtha » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:09 AM UTC

dilyevsky wrote: post #73

Jugurtha wrote: post #68

How does the author come to the conclusion to break Facebook down and regulate it after the outage ? There are a lot of power outages in the world by companies that are regulated, sometimes even state-owned.

Maybe the intent is to have it down more often? I think you’re assuming these empty moralizing statements aren’t just made for the clicks…

>Maybe the intent is to have it down more often?

It would have been a well put snarky tweet if that were the intent.

>I think you’re assuming these empty moralizing statements aren’t just made for the clicks…

I am guilty of not immediately considering people who write these things as attention seeking virtue signaling consensus wanting idiots; I may as well be the idiot failing to understand what they're saying.

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

#79

Post by sandworm101 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:13 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #75

Was talking about this with a friend today, and I think this incident highlights why I sometimes get really depressed about my career and technology. I'm a Gen X-er, and I started my career in the late 90s. Before that I was a ham radio operator in junior high and HS (back when they had Morse code tests!). I remember the heady euphoria around the Internet then, and the vision of "tech utopia" was certainly the domina…

Let the sheep have their facebook apps. Modern tech has also brought us strong open source tools. We have stronger encryption in any linux distro than any army had in the 90s. We have communication pathways (Tor) that defeat censorship. I can send an email today, encrypted then sent via Tor, that no government can censor, read or even detect that I have sent. I have a dongle that plugs into my phone that can decode aircraft transponders, or tune any station on a wide spectrum, that cost less than a fancy coffee. Tech has brought many wonderful tools to those of us willing to learn.

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

#80

Post by snek_case » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 4:15 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #75

Was talking about this with a friend today, and I think this incident highlights why I sometimes get really depressed about my career and technology. I'm a Gen X-er, and I started my career in the late 90s. Before that I was a ham radio operator in junior high and HS (back when they had Morse code tests!). I remember the heady euphoria around the Internet then, and the vision of "tech utopia" was certainly the domina…

It's easy to feel blasé about the internet, but it's also played a huge role in making information easily accessible. I learned about electronics from online tutorials. Taught myself programming. Also learned a lot about home repairs and renovations. Made a lot of contacts, landed jobs, etc. I met my partner through a dating app. I would say the internet has brought a lot of positive things in my life so far. The open source movement we have today wouldn't really be possible in an offline world.

When it comes to all the toxic things that social media can bring, I think we're slowly learning about them as a society, and maybe that's a good thing? Maybe we can develop healthier forms of social media.

I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me, but I think reddit is basically the anti-twitter, and is a lot less toxic as a result. On twitter you have a one-to-many broadcast system where one person can have hundreds of thousands and even millions of followers that basically encourages flamewars, short inflammatory comments. On reddit, you can get high karma, but everyone basically has an equal shot at writing a popular post, and negative comments tend to get downvoted. Clearly, some patterns lead to more or less toxic and hateful interactions. We should study and learn from them, and use that knowledge to design better social media platforms.