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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

#261

Post by mytherin »

shmel wrote: post #253

I really don't get the point about WA outage being a catastrophe. WA pretty much forces you to put all phone numbers in your contacts to communicate to anyone at all (ok, except group chats to an extent). Why can't you just send an SMS? Why can't you call? Even if it is across the border, just send an SMS: "hey buddy, WA is down, install telegram so we can talk tonight as we agreed to". I could understand the same ar…

In my experience many people have outdated phone numbers on Whatsapp, since changing phone numbers on Whatsapp requires all your contacts to update your contact manually. This happens in particular for people that move between countries frequently. Why go through the trouble of updating Whatsapp to your current phone number, especially if you still have access to your old phone number for when you move back to your home country.

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

#262

Post by jcun4128 »

snek_case wrote: post #80
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 ope…

It does take knowledge to learn though sadly (and personal drive), I'm helping some family in an underdeveloped country and I stupidly want to be like "learn to code" but yeah... that doesn't really work. They have the time but not the ability to learn even though they have wifi/computer.

Anyway I too learned from the web and it has benefited me a lot.

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

#263

Post by mrfusion »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #238
tomjen3 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 engine…

I think the problem is also that we also are shown what other people want to see. I genuinely don’t want to see political positions of my relatives, or my neighbors getting into heated internet fights. But I do want to see my relatives small joys, and I do want to know important neighborhood news and activities. That I can’t filter appropriately makes social media toxic, as I can feel my social animal brain see heigh…

Spot on! It’s so bizarre that people won’t bring up politics in person but feel it’s ok to blast their opinions to those same people.

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

#264

Post by tg180 »

wyldfire wrote: post #56
dvtrn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ever became of RCS? Wasn’t that supposed to support a good number of these features?

RCS tries to offer the feature set of WA and iMessage while engaging the mobile operator. WhatsApp and iMessage are "over the top" services that "only" leverage mobile data / TCP etc. RCS was an awful compromise in order to pander to the telcos. Being a simple data service avoids a lot of the problems introduced by cellular infrastructure. We can expect all of the same functionality/robustness/compatibility issues of…

RCS "engaging with mobile operators" means that it will enable spam and marketing.

Assuming an increase in the adoption of the technology, users will still mainly use OTT services.

WhatsApp Business is a saint in comparison to the Wild West of telcos.

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

#266

Post by leokennis »

madeofpalk wrote: post #240
leokennis wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When had all sms or phone service in your country gone down? Sure a carrier might have issues - but there are other carriers who can pick up the load and there are likely government contingency plans for just that situation. Same doesn’t apply to WA.

If my carrier goes down, it doesn't help me I can't just switch at the drop of a hat to another carrier who is still up. Likewise, when Whatsapp goes down I can still talk to people on iMessage or Discord or SMS.

What I’m talking about here isn’t my WA group chat with my soccer team.

I’m talking about 911 being reachable, or about government communication with its citizens etc.

For these bigger use cases, there are contingency plans. For example, 911 will remain reachable via other carriers for you even when your carrier goes down.

For some governments, WA is in the critical path for these use cases. And you can’t route around WA as it’s one product by one company who is the sole maintainer of it.

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

#267

Post by hansel_der »

madeofpalk wrote: post #230
leokennis wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one thing, many governments will have laws about availability of key infrastructure (roads, snail mail, 4G and 5G, wired internet, financial services etc.) which result in resilience decisions: * Have at least 2 or 3 mobile networks; if 1 fails, people can still dial 112 (911) over the remaining one(s) * If banks break down, you can still withdraw up to €xyz from an ATM during the emergency * Even if all mail isn…

I'm confused - SMS and other telephone services already go down. Regulating something doesn't make it more reliable. Arguably the regulation of "classic" telephony services is what lead to the innovations of Whatsapp and everything else.

this likely depends on the point of view. ie. if you count the offline hours of all telcos vs. whatsapp, sure wa comes out on top. but from the perspective of an individual, the availability of wa is far lower than that of my mobile phone network.

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

#268

Post by krapp »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #258
corinroyal wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tempting. Sadly, if we let the sheep have their FB, the likely result will be that we lose whatever semblance of democracy we have left. Already we're down to one party that belives in free and fair elections. Our system depends on informed citizens, not massive authoritarian psyop experiments. The longer we go where the majority can't get overwhelmingly popular policies accomplished, the closer we get to turning to…

Will it be better if we destroy FB and the sheep is back at TVs?

It would be better if we didn't keep referring to people as sheep, TBH.

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

#269

Post by rjtavares »

freetinker wrote: post #255
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…

I’m going to count HN as a social network. It’s one of my favorite places on the internet. It surfaces great content, and the comments are a gold mine of top-notch information and advice (by and large). What general principles can we learn from HN that can be applied elsewhere? Does HN self-select its audience? No profit motive? Great moderation? (Thanks Dang!)

It's pretty obviously moderation. And the fact is: moderation hurts the bottom line.

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

#270

Post by hansel_der »

shmel wrote: post #253

I really don't get the point about WA outage being a catastrophe. WA pretty much forces you to put all phone numbers in your contacts to communicate to anyone at all (ok, except group chats to an extent). Why can't you just send an SMS? Why can't you call? Even if it is across the border, just send an SMS: "hey buddy, WA is down, install telegram so we can talk tonight as we agreed to". I could understand the same ar…

sure first world problems.

but to emphasize, imagine having other addictive stuff unavailable, like coffee

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