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

#141

Post by smt88 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

havelhovel wrote: post #116

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #94

Why would breaking Facebook down and regulating them solve anything related to the global dependence on WhatsApp? Aren’t the only people who know how to run these services already running them? Like, do we expect the government to take WhatsApp away from Facebook and then create government contracts for companies like Oracle to maintain the infrastructure? So we’re back to square one but with the bureaucratic mess of…

Also the author cites Palestinians and Israelis both relying on WhatsApp as justification for breaking down and regulating Facebook. Pray tell, if nationalized, how many nations would be impartial enough to let both sides continue to use such an (apparently) essential communication platform?

No one is proposing nationalizing WhatsApp or Facebook. I have no idea who you're arguing against, but it's not the author of this thread.

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

#142

Post by vxNsr » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:27 AM UTC

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #94

Why would breaking Facebook down and regulating them solve anything related to the global dependence on WhatsApp? Aren’t the only people who know how to run these services already running them? Like, do we expect the government to take WhatsApp away from Facebook and then create government contracts for companies like Oracle to maintain the infrastructure? So we’re back to square one but with the bureaucratic mess of…

Facebook’s culture is “move fast and break things” the exact opposite of what you want from a utility used by billions every minute. Forgetting Facebook and insta for a second, WhatsApp really is the defacto phone and text service for many parts of the world: the taliban set up WhatsApp groups to manage things as they took over in Kabul.

Putting a little more maturity into their SOP isn’t the worst thing.

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

#143

Post by smt88 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:29 AM UTC

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #94

Why would breaking Facebook down and regulating them solve anything related to the global dependence on WhatsApp? Aren’t the only people who know how to run these services already running them? Like, do we expect the government to take WhatsApp away from Facebook and then create government contracts for companies like Oracle to maintain the infrastructure? So we’re back to square one but with the bureaucratic mess of…

It's strange that you're ignoring the massive area between "unregulated" and "nationalized" (which is where most companies fall already).

No one is saying to break up Facebook and give it to the government. The idea is to break up Facebook because they've been buying competitors instead of trying to compete. It is an attempt to make the market more competitive.

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

#144

Post by vxNsr » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:32 AM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #65

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.

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…

But don’t you see what you’re saying? If the phone companies (TMobile, Verizon, etc) offered competitive pricing these apps/internet services wouldn’t exist! We would all happily pay Verizon the reasonable fees, instead they try to milk us and end up losing our business entirely.

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

#145

Post by vxNsr » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #52

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, is there a good reason this hasn't happened yet? If people use WhatsApp, the mobile networks get $0, so they ought to be offering at least somewhat competitive prices...

Why and how would the telephone networks compete with $0.00? As far as I understand, the whole telephone protocol is decades old and involves various networks paying each other based on who knows what per years old contracts at years old prices.

VOIP from tmo/vz/att is still 100x better quality than voip from WhatsApp or zoom, I’ll choose tmo calling if it’s cheap or free over WhatsApp every time.

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

#146

Post by tablespoon » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:41 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #79

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 a…

> Let the sheep have their facebook apps.

Those "sheep" (i.e. people who aren't crypto-nerds) are the people I mainly want to communicate with.

> 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.

And those pathways are almost never used, except by people who have an unusual interest in the pathways themselves and people who want to use them to do ignoble and illegal things.

Also, those technologies aren't as powerful as you think they are. Any major government that cares to detect and block them can, and if they want to find out what you sent they can always hack your endpoint or beat you until you tell them. China is the proof of concept for that.

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

#147

Post by robbedpeter » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:41 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #61

robbedpeter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

6 years later...

DSL is capable of the specs in the requirements. Centurylink has done basically nothing but maintain status quo and upgraded minimal copper and dsl connections. Wibaux montana can get satellite or dsl. Centurylink pocketed the cash and called it good.

Wolf Point has a similar situation. Montana is about to see about 300 million in federal funding and big ISPs are lobbying to slurp it up, and guess what they'll do with it? Probably bonuses for regional execs, and some marketing to make the local yokels think something has been accomplished.

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

#148

Post by kongin » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:42 AM UTC

3grdlurker wrote: post #95

snek_case wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ope…

> one person can have hundreds of thousands and even millions of followers that basically encourages flamewars, short inflammatory comments Honestly you just described reddit, too, except of course for the follower count—but the point is that reddit doesn’t have to have that many participants in a discussion thread for it to reach a level of toxicity same as Twitter. Sure, social media did make information more acces…

[flagged]

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

#149

Post by strogonoff » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:43 AM UTC

Why break Facebook down instead of requiring large social platforms to provide exhaustive open APIs?

The latter is much more constructive, purely technical, and instead of levelling field as a one-off actually lays down the foundation required for a heterogenous social tech landscape.

Meanwhile, the breaking down is political, and does not address the underlying mechanics that will keep producing these quasi-monopolies.

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

#150

Post by forgotpwd16 » Tue, Oct 05, 2021, 6:52 AM UTC

vxNsr wrote: post #142

jkelleyrtp wrote: post #94

Why would breaking Facebook down and regulating them solve anything related to the global dependence on WhatsApp? Aren’t the only people who know how to run these services already running them? Like, do we expect the government to take WhatsApp away from Facebook and then create government contracts for companies like Oracle to maintain the infrastructure? So we’re back to square one but with the bureaucratic mess of…

Facebook’s culture is “move fast and break things” the exact opposite of what you want from a utility used by billions every minute. Forgetting Facebook and insta for a second, WhatsApp really is the defacto phone and text service for many parts of the world: the taliban set up WhatsApp groups to manage things as they took over in Kabul. Putting a little more maturity into their SOP isn’t the worst thing.

>move fast and break things

How often Facebook really breaks? I've had a much higher number of electricity blackouts and internet outages in the last decade than Facebook going down. Basically I don't even recall Facebook ever going down for that long, or breaking in any other way.