Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

dw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 262 posts

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#251

Post by benhurmarcel »

gruturo wrote: post #145
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The USA is in a position to shutdown all the technological infrastructure of Europe (AWS, Google, Facebook, Azure, ...) and to openly spy its citizens OK, and what can we do about that? We build our own successful cars, we build our own successful planes but it seems like when it comes to building highly scalable world dominating software we are powerless even though our universities churn out tons of talented CS en…

We pay devs worse because software is a complete aftertought, and the guys who produce it therefore are not seen as adding much value, if any. Meanwhile, the "software is eating the world" memo is almost 10 years old yet nobody this side of the pond got it. Fix this mindset (good luck!), which is the real issue, and dev wages will correct themselves too.

The salary difference between US and Europe is similar for devs and other jobs like engineering. It’s not unique to software.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#252

Post by toohotatopic »

fluffything wrote: post #245
toohotatopic wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. I just wouldn't see those points as essential problems: * If you have co-founders, 25k shouldn't be a problem if you pool your money. A group of people who have worked for some years should have that much money or I would fear that they cannot hold budgets for the company * If you have employees, 25k is a month or two of their salaries. You are dead in the water if you don't have that amount of money i…

> You are dead in the water if you don't have that amount of money in advance as a buffer In Germany, yes. The people that usually have the high-enough risk tolerance to build a startup are usually broke college graduates. For a group of 3 broke college graduates each with 10k Euros in debt from BaFoG, coming up with 25k Euros just to try an idea that in the vast majority of cases will not succeed is pretty much impo…

This is all valid if you need a GmbH. But if you are building a website you can do without. Which risk do those students take that cannot be stomached?

On the other hand, since you have 25k, where else but in your startup can you invest your money and expect high profits? If anything, your family does not only rely on you but you can rely on your family to start a company. Your children depend on you showing them how to take risks and be successful.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#253

Post by anoncake »

VMG wrote: post #37
anoncake wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning WhatsApp actually accomplishes that by creating demand for these alternatives.

nope, people will use SMS and email

Temporarily. Unless SMS and email actually fulfill everyone's needs, which would be quite surprising.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#254

Post by etherealG »

1bc29b36f623ba8 wrote: post #241
oezi wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp has replaced SMS as the defacto standard mobile messenger for 98% of users in Europe (or many other places). It doesn't matter if they do things badly, there is no way around them at the moment.

I just don't see the appeal. MMS works well for things like pictures, doesn't it?

An anecdote from South Africa: SMS was charged per message at very high rates. MMS even higher. Mobile data, while expensive too, was much cheaper per message. Also, free wifi was quite common in many urban areas. All this at a time when WhatsApp was much much simpler and easier to use, with good UX. The person to person advertising for WhatsApp at the time was “it’s free”, which while not 100% true factoring in mobile bandwidth, it was effectively true since mobile data and WiFi was at least 1 or 2 orders of magnitude cheaper than SMS or MMS.

That stayed true for a few years, and so WhatsApp became the de facto standard for messaging.

I can’t speak for other countries but in South Africa that’s why. And the rest is just networking effects.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#255

Post by fluffything »

toohotatopic wrote: post #252
fluffything wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are dead in the water if you don't have that amount of money in advance as a buffer In Germany, yes. The people that usually have the high-enough risk tolerance to build a startup are usually broke college graduates. For a group of 3 broke college graduates each with 10k Euros in debt from BaFoG, coming up with 25k Euros just to try an idea that in the vast majority of cases will not succeed is pretty much impo…

This is all valid if you need a GmbH. But if you are building a website you can do without. Which risk do those students take that cannot be stomached? On the other hand, since you have 25k, where else but in your startup can you invest your money and expect high profits? If anything, your family does not only rely on you but you can rely on your family to start a company. Your children depend on you showing them how…

> This is all valid if you need a GmbH. But if you are building a website you can do without.

If you are doing that alone sure, but if you need to hire people and only have equity to pay them, things will get sketchy quickly without some kind of legal entity.

> On the other hand, since you have 25k, where else but in your startup can you invest your money and expect high profits? If anything, your family does not only rely on you but you can rely on your family to start a company. Your children depend on you showing them how to take risks and be successful.

High profits are the reward for high risk, and high risks do by necessity materialize very often - otherwise they wouldn't be high.

Also, high risks aren't necessarily rewarded with high profits - there are many risks that just aren't worth taking.

Those are the true lessons for the children: assess the risk, asses the profits, and decide whether taking the risk is worth it _for you_. Every person is different and has a different risk tolerance, there is no right answer to the question of whether a risk is worth taking.

A 25 year old joining a startup is taking a smaller risk than a 30 year old simply because they are investing less (their time is worth less, they have less to lose, etc.). The profits are also higher for a 25 year old: 1 year of failed startup experience at 25 can have a huge impact on your human capital long term - if you are a manager at 30, and jump to a startup that fails people will just think that you hugely miscalculated a risk. That might actually hurt your human capital.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#256

Post by 1bc29b36f623ba8 »

etherealG wrote: post #254
1bc29b36f623ba8 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just don't see the appeal. MMS works well for things like pictures, doesn't it?

An anecdote from South Africa: SMS was charged per message at very high rates. MMS even higher. Mobile data, while expensive too, was much cheaper per message. Also, free wifi was quite common in many urban areas. All this at a time when WhatsApp was much much simpler and easier to use, with good UX. The person to person advertising for WhatsApp at the time was “it’s free”, which while not 100% true factoring in mobi…

Ah, that makes sense. I'm fortunate enough to live where we have unmetered SMS/calls/data so I've never had that issue (at least not while WhatApp's been around).

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#257

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

pjmlp wrote: post #239
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Who? A house near a big city in Germany is over a million and city apartment over half a million. How many devs can afford that even with a credit?

By having a 30 year long credit and not going over the roof with their choices. Meanwhile as described by Lehman brothers fiasco documentaries, multiple American families went totally bankrupt with their multiple mortgages over their houses.

Except that as a FAANGer you earn enough to own your house in full in 10-20 years and retire early, while as a dev in Europe's strongest economy you're basically a neofeudalist slave to your bank and employer way into your 60s(if anyone will still hire you then). Really nice.

Just because some people in the US made bad financial choices with property investments(some Europeans also did the same) doesn't change the fact that US tech workers earn way more than Europeans, cost of living adjusted.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#258

Post by chpmrc »

annadane wrote: post #225
chpmrc wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use the web app then. Once you're on the page use one of the "shortcut" features of Chrome or Edge and you can open it as a separate app.

I understand you're trying to be helpful but the parent comment is still correct that one should not trust Whatsapp

Yes and I didn't say otherwise, I simply offered a sandboxed alternative.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#259

Post by toohotatopic »

fluffything wrote: post #255
toohotatopic wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all valid if you need a GmbH. But if you are building a website you can do without. Which risk do those students take that cannot be stomached? On the other hand, since you have 25k, where else but in your startup can you invest your money and expect high profits? If anything, your family does not only rely on you but you can rely on your family to start a company. Your children depend on you showing them how…

> This is all valid if you need a GmbH. But if you are building a website you can do without. If you are doing that alone sure, but if you need to hire people and only have equity to pay them, things will get sketchy quickly without some kind of legal entity. > On the other hand, since you have 25k, where else but in your startup can you invest your money and expect high profits? If anything, your family does not onl…

>and only have equity to pay them

There are legal forms to share a company that are not a GmbH but come with personal liabilities. There is also always the option to use an English Ltd or that Swedish form.

>there is no right answer to the question of whether a risk is worth taking.

I tend to disagree. Multiply the risk with the expected profits. Unlike extreme sports, death is not part of the outcome unless you invest in drugs. It's not about thrills and crossing boundaries. If the expected profits are the highest, a risky investment is the reasonable choice, no matter the size of the risk.

Regarding the age, a 25 year old has the most to lose. Until 26 or 27, the brain has the biggest capacity for development. Wasting those years on something profitable but non-educative is a waste of potential. On the other hand, most successful companies are created by older founders because they have the experience and network to be able to succeed.

The 30 year old manager on the other hand hasn't even reached the middle of his life. What if he runs a project in his company that fails? Will he have to prevent mistakes at all costs? Will he ever be able to manage instead of having to cover his ass for further 30 years? By focussing on what he could lose, he is wasting all the opportunities in his life. People who think like that shouldn't start a company.

High profits don't come from high risks. As you say, if you only have the option between high profit, high risk and low profit, low risk, then it is all about risk preference. However, it's all about information asymmetry. Once you know a market and you see an opportunity, that means the risk is lower or the profits are higher than any other market participants assumes.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#260

Post by rmoriz »

mercacona wrote: post #233
rmoriz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Germany companies and government are required to configure mandatory TLS for SMTP and IMAP so the biggest attack vector is gone. No end-to-end encryption though.

The most significant attack vector might be the admin of the email service. In European public institutions, the admins have access to your work account (which is healthy and ok). WhatsApp, it’s the equivalent to share a coffee some blocks far away from the office (which is healthy and ok).

true. Keep in mind that specific industries (e.g. finance) have transparency requirements so end-to-end encrypted messengers are not acceptable (prevent insider trading, collusive behavior, data theft).

In private, personal communication, everyone must have the right to use end-to-end encryption but in commercial and governmental communication, there needs to be some archive, accessible on judicial request.

Post reply on HN