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Meta outage

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Re: Meta outage

#791

Post by ifyoubuildit »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #753
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So compute requires vendor lock in? That seems silly to me. Edit: Can we just acknowledge that a lot of the bells and whistles are for the companies benefit at the expense of the user? Thats their right, but it's also our right to want something better.

> So compute requires vendor lock in? That seems silly to me. Correct, it's very similar to game consoles, though it is somewhat more open than those (sideloading is possible, including standard Android apps IIRC, and you can run PC VR games from other stores while tethered). > Can we just acknowledge that a lot of the bells and whistles are for the companies benefit at the expense of the user? It's the same model as…

> Correct, it's very similar to game consoles

This doesn't explain why its _required_. It just means there is precedent.

Your other point is better, although I think you mean it would cost the consumer more for the hardware, right? The hardware would cost the same to produce, it's just that the company would miss out on surveillance based revenue.

It's a reasonable point, fb would make less money if they made an open headset, possibly to the point that they wouldn't make it all.

But the world where fb doesn't make any headset, and the world where they make an unacceptable headset are basically equivalent to me - the former might even have an edge in that shitty relationships with corporations aren't being encouraged (like they are throughout everything tech related currently). Granted, them blazing the trail has a tiny chance of enabling a reasonable alternative to come along in the future.

But I am a bit of a Luddite, and I know that people want their toys, and they want them now.

Re: Meta outage

#793

Post by TulliusCicero »

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #791
TulliusCicero wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So compute requires vendor lock in? That seems silly to me. Correct, it's very similar to game consoles, though it is somewhat more open than those (sideloading is possible, including standard Android apps IIRC, and you can run PC VR games from other stores while tethered). > Can we just acknowledge that a lot of the bells and whistles are for the companies benefit at the expense of the user? It's the same model as…

> Correct, it's very similar to game consoles This doesn't explain why its _required_. It just means there is precedent. Your other point is better, although I think you mean it would cost the consumer more for the hardware, right? The hardware would cost the same to produce, it's just that the company would miss out on surveillance based revenue. It's a reasonable point, fb would make less money if they made an open…

> the company would miss out on surveillance based revenue.

More than likely most of Meta's revenue from the Quest series other than hardware is based off of, y'know, selling games. I doubt tracking what games you play to target ads in the OS is more valuable than the money they make when people actually buy games.

In Facebook or Instagram, you're looking at a space that they can shoot lots of ads into, and it's otherwise very hard to monetize. But a gaming-focused VR headset is a different story. Most of the time you're not looking at anything that can have ads in it, but you can actually sell stuff very easily.

Maybe this'll change someday if they actually get social media shit in there that's popular, I'm sure Meta would love that, but so far that hasn't happened.

> But the world where fb doesn't make any headset, and the world where they make an unacceptable headset are basically equivalent to me

Popularizing the format is useful for pushing the tech forward. A big player pushing lots of devices means that the supply chains feeding the manufacture of those devices bulk up too, not to mention other knock-on effects like greater consumer awareness, and "free research" for whoever copies what the market leader does (at least for things that aren't IP-protected).

> But I am a bit of a Luddite, and I know that people want their toys, and they want them now.

I can hear the sneer from over here, yes.

Re: Meta outage

#794

Post by dtdynasty »

ak_111 wrote: post #737

I have a very tangential question to this situation prompted by some conspiracy theories linking the outage to today being Super Tuesday election day in the US. Why does Facebook need sharing news media or political ad targeting on its platform from a business point of view? Am I being naive or is it really such an important revenue driver to the business or the core experience of the app? I think it is the source of…

My guess would be that they would lose a significant amount of their user base and engagement without politics and news media.

Re: Meta outage

#796

Post by baby »

jon-wood wrote: post #374
DeusExMachina wrote: post #281

Looking at the Downdetector home page [1], it looks like many more services are having outages, not just the ones owned by Meta, including: - Google - YouTube - Google Play - T-Mobile - X (Twitter) - Discord - TikTok - Pokemon Go - Snapchat It looks like they all have the same failure point. [1] https://downdetector.com

Or people are using Facebook Auth for them. I don't really trust Down Detector, which despite the claims is really People Winging on Twitter Detector.

It's not that, getting some issues using X

Re: Meta outage

#797

Post by baby »

btbuildem wrote: post #440

Hope it stays broken. Imagine? People would blink, confused, and slowly start to wake from a decade-long stupor.

Man I would lose contact with a lot of friends if that were to happen

Re: Meta outage

#798

Post by Zak »

neocritter wrote: post #607
HumblyTossed wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People overestimate how much power it takes to handle lots of queries per second on a well-tuned system and well-written software in 2024. I wasn't overestimating anything, but with how easy it is to write concurrently software today, why limit your site to a single core.

Maybe it's a lisp thing. Who knows what mysteries lurk here

It's not a lisp thing. Many lisps are capable of multithreading, including implementations of Common Lisp that have had it far longer than HN has been around, and Clojure, which is extremely good at it.

It even looks like Arc, the lisp HN is written in has threads now, but Arc is built on top of Racket and uses Racket's green threads, so it only takes advantage of one CPU core. Racket does have OS threads, but Arc does not use them.

Re: Meta outage

#799

Post by aloe_falsa »

tjpnz wrote: post #588
deadbabe wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entire businesses and livelihoods would crumble without Meta’s platforms.

If your business only exists at the sole discretion of Meta then it's not a viable business, at least not in the longterm.

Technically true, just as if you replace Meta with Amazon, Google Cloud, Etsy, eBay, the local city council, etc. If you don't have a diversified, multi-market, preferably international presence, you're not viable in the long term.

Of course, in the really long term, we're all dead. Meanwhile, the local mom & pop candy shops keep advertising and selling online and making ends meet.

Re: Meta outage

#800

Post by ifyoubuildit »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #793
ifyoubuildit wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Correct, it's very similar to game consoles This doesn't explain why its _required_. It just means there is precedent. Your other point is better, although I think you mean it would cost the consumer more for the hardware, right? The hardware would cost the same to produce, it's just that the company would miss out on surveillance based revenue. It's a reasonable point, fb would make less money if they made an open…

> the company would miss out on surveillance based revenue. More than likely most of Meta's revenue from the Quest series other than hardware is based off of, y'know, selling games. I doubt tracking what games you play to target ads in the OS is more valuable than the money they make when people actually buy games. In Facebook or Instagram, you're looking at a space that they can shoot lots of ads into, and it's othe…

> More than likely most of Meta's revenue from the Quest series other than hardware is based off of, y'know, selling games. I doubt tracking what games you play to target ads in the OS is more valuable than the money they make when people actually buy games.

Isn't that a great argument for why they don't need to have such a hard requirement for a logged in session? Consoles didn't have an internet connection for the longest time, though only because it wasnt feasible yet. They moved a lot of games.

> I can hear the sneer from over here, yes.

I don't mean it as judgment, I know I'm the weirdo here. Sorry if that came off rude.

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