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Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

developers.facebook.com

201–210 of 252 posts

Re: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

#201
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Saying everything is so integrated that it can't possibly be decentralized is basically proof of monopoly. > This doesn't matter from the standard of antitrust law. What most fail to grasp is that being a monopoly is not illegal. It's only illegal to use monopoly power to harm consumer welfare. Citation needed? I thought, in the US at least, that the government will go after you if you use your monopoly powers to…

It depends on how the Justice department feels, to some extent. GM in the 50s and 60s actually kept an eye on their market share, and sometimes would kill/cutback projects or products that may have threatened going over a certain percentage (around 60%, IIRC.) At that time merely going over that number would have been enough to start an investigation. Some would argue though that back then DOJ 'cared' more.

Jurisprudence also changed on the topic since then. In particular, Robert Bork published the legal theory of consumer welfare in 1978. SCOTUS essentially adapted that wholesale into case law starting with Reiter v. Sototone.

Given the current makeup of the court, it seems extremely unlikely that the justices would overturn this precedent.

Re: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

#202

"Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome" With Facebook products, you see outages in December and May. Why? Those are the last few weeks to complete your project before your performance review. Miss this window and you find yourself in career trouble. Facebook employees put a tremendous amount of pressure on themselves during these months. I would not be surprised if this outage was caused by a bad pull…

do people get fired or not promoted?

Depending on your current level, this can be the same thing (Facebook has an "engineering progression" - there's a time frame within which you're expected to be promoted to a certain level).

Re: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

#204
post #189
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think MS said it was bundled in the kernel , but it is true that parts of IE are tied into the OS (or at least used to be) in the form of mshtml and jscript.

Basic functionality like windows update was implemented using websites and activex components. You couldn't run that with any other browser.

Actually you could, as long as that browser used the Trident engine. Microsoft could have easily shipped a dedicated update application that's just a simple "browser" locked to the windows update website.

Re: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can share to Signal or contacts-via-Signal, and have been for years... I think this is a you problem. Signal is honestly fantastic as a SMS-replacement app. It sends Signal messages to contacts with Signal and normal SMS to contacts without (Telegram might do the same thing, being able to set it as your default SMS app, I'm not sure).

In Brazil this is a GREAT reason to NOT use it. In fact phone operators for a while tried to ban whatsapp here, SMS prices in Brazil are just nuts (it is normal for an SMS cost fifty cents or so, sometimes even more, a full SMS conversation can cost you several days worth of food). Everyone here just uses whatsapp, because of how ridiculous SMS prices are.

People still use SMS? At least in Colombia no one ever writes an SMS. For the same reasons.

Re: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

#207
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do people get fired or not promoted?

Depending on your current level, this can be the same thing (Facebook has an "engineering progression" - there's a time frame within which you're expected to be promoted to a certain level).

> there's a time frame within which you're expected to be promoted to a certain level

What happens if you don’t? You get fired or put on a PIP?

Re: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> convincing the European Commission in 2014 that there is no technical way to integrate Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp user accounts. What was the argument there? It's not like that's solving the halting problem.

I think “technical” here just means something like: one uses phone numbers and the other uses emails. The current technical solution doesn’t make it straightforward to merge. Evolving the technical solution would require product and user facing changes. And probably a lot of edge cases

That sounds like a tech interview question

Re: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

#209
post #48

"But senators, we can't break up these three unrelated services because they all use the same messaging infrastructure!"

the funny thing is that this actually proves the opposite. The consumer overall would obviously be way better off with three redundant and independent systems that don't go down at the same time.

Re: Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp Outage

#210
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For their users.

At that point (around the time of the acquisition), I guess one could say there was significant overlap between FB and IG users, and that FB had more users than IG.

No, Instagram had a thriving mobile user base. Facebook was getting demolished by Twitter in this area at the time. FB knew the future was mobile
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