If you compare Facebook's uptime vs Reddit it is no contest. Granted, it isn't as widely used compared to Facebook Login, WhatsApp etc. but still it's impressive
Reddit isn't remotely comparable to Whatsapp.
Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
161–170 of 356 posts
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#162Why 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.
In the tweet's case also, if Whatsapp were split from Facebook, Facebook's BGP failures wouldn't have taken it down, so the decentralization has robustness benefits even if you ignore the market benefits.
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What about Cloudflare? Should it be illegal?
Cloudflare and Whatsapp are not comparable. The relationships are different (CF provides hosting for individual businesses or services, Whatsapp facilitates person-to-person communication), the switching costs are different (most or all CF customers can on a reasonable time delay switch to a different provider with 0 downtime, while 'switching' away from whatsapp requires moving your entire social graph to a new app), and the impact of an outage is different (some or all CF-based services are degraded/down vs you can't communicate with anyone from your social graph unless you can reach them on the phone or in person)
Or for a basic summary: Cloudflare is interoperable, and the damage done by a CF outage may be widespread but it's limited to CF customers. Whatsapp isn't interoperable and an outage effectively shuts off wireless/internet communications for a sizable chunk of the earth's population. It certainly shouldn't be that way.
There are probably other ways you could combat this instead of just breaking up FB - for example some telcos give special deals to Facebook and Whatsapp so they're cheaper than competitors, and they're already often cheaper than SMS. You could fix that. But centralization can be fought directly on US soil by breaking the company up, while fixing those issues I mentioned has to be done legally on a country by country basis.
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m by no means an expert in US political history but all books and papers I’ve read indicate that this polarisation between the parties did not always exist. Members were allowed to vote according to their own principals instead of just the party line which is basically always opposing the other party. Senators and other politicians would have bbq on Saturday at each other’s place. It appears that this no longer hap…
Too much transparency. If thousands of eyes of gatekeepers are at you at all times, and immediately start screaming that you are a DINO or a RINO if you do not hold the party line at all times, you have all the incentives to be strictly partisan. We generally consider transparency in politics a good thing, especially because it may reduce corruption. But it comes with significant downsides. Only very resilient person…
Oh. What meetup, what did I miss?
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whatever you think of Zuckerberg, Ayn Rand, or politics, it's unquestionable that Zuckerberg and Facebook have built, bought and maintained useful services used by billions. That's literally what the featured tweet is complaining about - Whatsapp is so crucial for so many it's like a utility.
This is so disingenuous. From day one, Facebook have done all in their power to make themselves a monopoly while simultaneously trying to avoid all of the legal restrictions that normally apply to a utility service.
Yeah, FB has made incredibly smart business choices.
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#166Social media and messenger communication should be based on common protocols allowing different networks and services to be connected. I should be able to message you on your application from my different application because neither are walled gardens and are under-pinned by a common protocol. I can phone anyone on any network anywhere in the world or email them regardless of their provider. This has to be no different.
Hardly a new idea, and I know such things exist in embryonic form, but it really seems like the only future I would want with regards to these technologies. Obviously the barriers to this are immense, how would you get Facebook to let go of its walled garden? This will kill a lot of businesses.
I'm not saying it's likely to happen but I still think we must strive for something like this. It wouldn't stop profitable products from being built but they would be equivalent to email clients. Obviously far less profitable than owning that user and their data. The social good that would come from this though would be immense.
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#167Late last year here in Australia, I remember ACT Health announced a major change to the territory's COVID restrictions exclusively on Facebook Live one afternoon and didn't update their website until the following morning. Highly inconvenient for someone without Facebook looking to visit the territory.
While I understand the relevance to the tweet, at least to me, this isn't Facebook's fault, but rather the government's for using a private companies' platform, instead of it's own website.
I understand why so many companies and services are piggybacking on Facebook/WhatsApp, but they should always have a fallback, in case their single third-party service goes down.
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about Cloudflare? Should it be illegal?
Cloudflare and Whatsapp are not comparable. The relationships are different (CF provides hosting for individual businesses or services, Whatsapp facilitates person-to-person communication), the switching costs are different (most or all CF customers can on a reasonable time delay switch to a different provider with 0 downtime, while 'switching' away from whatsapp requires moving your entire social graph to a new app)…
Fair enough.
> Whatsapp isn't interoperable and an outage effectively shuts off wireless/internet communications for a sizable chunk of the earth's population. It certainly shouldn't be that way.
I agree with this. However, I completely disagree that we should "break down and regulate Facebook". We already have gazillion alternatives. And it's up to governments and people themselves to use them. This accident is a great reminder that people should have an alternative.
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am also from that generation, but got into an IT career from the early 80s. I understand where you're coming from. I'm increasingly the least-tech focused of my family/social circle, despite being the most heavily involved in the tech industry. In fact, I think my lack of bullishness in tech is due to the fact that I've been in the tech industry for 40 years. I know where the downsides lie. However, don't let the cur…
> To wit, the global monopolist who benefited the most from the network-effect lock-in used to be IBM. Then it was Microsoft. Now it's Facebook. In time, this too will change. Why does there have to be a global monopolist though? I wonder if we ever will end up in that decentralised dream.
Unfortunately it seems to me that it is more convenient for majority of people to be served by monopolies.
Re: Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable
#170Was 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 ope…
I sometimes think the Internet is like the Mirror of Erised from Harry Potter. It can show us what we want: if what we want is knowledge it will show us that, if what we want is proof that we are right it will show us that and if we want to see how horrible other people are, that is what we will see.
It was just that people turned out to value less truth less, than being told they were right. You can fault the engineers who built this for it, but then you are faulting them for thinking too highly of people.