10 ms·

What most people outside of Brazil don't realize is that WhatsApp is almost universally used by Brazillians to communicate about EVERYTHING, even your doctor [0

What most people outside of Brazil don't realize is that WhatsApp is almost universally used by Brazillians to communicate about EVERYTHING, even your doctor [0][1]. My wife is Brazillian and uses it to communicate with her family in Brazil every day. This will have disastrous consequences for Brazilians domestically and internationally. This policy is being put in place by unelected judges and cartel of monopolistic telcos - all at the expense of the people. [0]http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-apps-9-in-10-brazilian-doctors-use-whatsapp-to-talk-to-patients http://www.cityam.com/230372/digital-health-wearables-and-ap... [1]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-brazilians-use-whatsapp-to-connect-on-zika/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-brazilians-use...

samstave 10y ago
It's almost like Brazil is the most technologically advanced poor-3rd-world-nation I know from my brief time at Facebook, they use Brazil user-searches in their intro classes to tableau reporting on users' graphs - "show me everyone in Brazil who is 18 years old and posted about subject-X"
- motoboi 10y ago
  Brasil is the 8th economy in the world.
  - erickhill 10y ago
    Perhaps the country has a large economy, but its people are being left behind. In the list of countries by average wage, they are 47th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w... And for the median household income, they aren't in the top 35, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
    - myth_drannon 10y ago
      The first wiki link data is weird. How is that even possible ? 25 Israel $1,804 26 Russia $1,800
      - Roodgorf 10y ago
        I'm not sure I understand what you're pointing out here. How is what possible, the Israel's average wage is $4 more than Russia's?
  - fnbr 10y ago
    GDP per capita is the relevant metric here, as it's a much better gauge of how much money each person has. Using that metric, Brazil ranks 76th [0]. Ranking countries by nominal GDP [1] gives a lopsided view of the world's economy as you can have countries with very large populations of poor people that rank highly, such as China (#2) or India (#9). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
    - sndean 10y ago
      > GDP per capita is the relevant metric here Yeah, I was going to make a similar comment. Listing the wealth of nations based on nominal GDP will result in a list that's similar to ordering them by population size.
    - grecy 10y ago
      >as it's a much better gauge of how much money each person has You've got to be kidding me. The US has a massive GDP per capita but there are 30 million people struggling to survive without even healthcare. GDP per capita tells you nothing about how much each person has, it just tells you how much there is and how many people. How's it's split among them is another story.
      - aianus 10y ago
        > The US has a massive GDP per capita but there are 30 million people struggling to survive without even healthcare. Relatively few people personally need healthcare at any given time. In comparison to, say, clean water, food, shelter, education, and physical security, which actual third world countries seem to still have serious problems with.
        grecy 10y ago
        > which actual third world countries seem to still have serious problems with. If you're comparing the US to actual third world countries, you've already lost.
- nvk 10y ago
  Brasil is not poor, is F*n corrupt.
  - samstave 10y ago
    Thanks, this is the main comment I shall reply to: yes my comment was made in ignorance. Ignorance is the lacking of knowledge of the situation. I was not having the information I needed to make a fully informed comment, and thus I offended people, apologies.
- bouk 10y ago
  Calling Brazil a "poor-3rd-world-nation" is really ignorant, as it has a development index similar to Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Cuba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
  - astrodust 10y ago
    São Paulo alone manages to rival New York City in scale, so it's absurd to call it "third world". Significant parts of Brazil lag behind in terms of development, but this is true in the US as well.
  - tn13 10y ago
    Brazil is a poor third world nation. It might be developing fast but still far from reaching middle income levels.
  - samstave 10y ago
    Sure but all the countries you mentioned are rife with corruption. Fuck those countries. I stand by my statement then: they are 3Rd world with respect to how they treat humans. Turkey is a corruption horror show. Mexicos death rate due to cartels is astronomical compared to every other country on earth. Cuba is still driving cars from the fifties and doesn't even have Internet, yet it houses our worst torture center that we know of (yes, all that is the fault of the US CIA) and Iran was an overthrown democracy (CIA again, thanks George) - but you cannot argue that they are not "3rd world" - we fucking kept them that way to exploit them.
- soapdog 10y ago
  Samstave, Just a bit of nitpick to save you some trouble in the future. Brazil is not poor. Brazil is the seventh world economy, if you count the number of nations in north america and europe, being the seventh world economy is a great deal. Also the division in 1st world and 3rd world is schewed upon today. Its akin to saying the N-word. There are much better, non-pejorative terms to be used. Brazil is a part of the BRICS or the world emerging countries. Right now it is in a huge political crisis and on the verge of a coup but it is not a poor-3rd-world-nation, it is a the world seventh economy and also dictating tendency for many emerging countries and a continental power in the south. That being said, you are completely correct that Brazilians love technology. Our smartphone revolution and expansion is awesome and we're keen to adopt new tech. Still more than half of the country doesn't have access to net infrastructure at their home and depends on cybercafes. If you want some real data on the technology adoption and usage in the country you can use the metrics and indicators from CETIC[0] which is the Brazilian Institute for the study of information technology usage and adoption. Their reports are awesome and will give you a much greater insight on internet usage in the country. [0]: http://cetic.br/ http://cetic.br/ PS: Sorry for the long rant, I work with digital inclusion and web literacy programs here in Brazil, unlocking new digital skills in low-income neighborhoods so I've been immersed in this type of thing for too long.
  - kawera 10y ago
    Not a "coup", you know that.
  - meira 10y ago
    Great response! (Y) Nice to see people like you here.
  - aerovistae 10y ago
    Your analogy between the terms 1st/3rd world country and that particular racial epithet is beyond absurd. To confirm this just try saying one or the other at work to test the reactions you get.
    - soapdog 10y ago
- twoarray 10y ago
  Your comment was filled with the typical Valley arrogance and ignorance with anything outside of SoMa. Not only is Brazil not a poor-3rd-world-nation, but other similar developing nations are by far more "technologically advanced" (e.g. China, India).
  - umanwizard 10y ago
    You obviously have no idea what you're talking about if you think China, Brazil, and India are all at similar levels of development.
intrasight 10y ago
"disastrous consequences"? Perhaps Brazilians should engage in some technological risk management.
raverbashing 10y ago
No, it won't have disastrous consequences. It happened last year as well Typical authoritarian act by a lower court judge that will be reversed in 1 or 2 days Nothing to see here
- surye 10y ago
  > Nothing to see here I feel like this is an overly dismissive attitude to have, even, or especially if, everything you said is true and this is some common behavior.
  - coliveira 10y ago
    Unfortunately this became common for Brazilians in the last few years. Judges are perceived as having extraordinary powers over everyone's lives. In the last few months, lower court judges have blocked actions of the president of the republic. They have also put in jail some of the richest people in the country, supposedly for corruption, but also for political reasons.
    - raverbashing 10y ago
      > They have also put in jail some of the richest people in the country, supposedly for corruption, but also for political reasons. Yes, the owner of the biggest construction company in Brazil, that had a sector dedicated for paying bribes, was "supposedly" arrested for corruption. What a joke
- ralmeida 10y ago
  Depends on how you define disastrous. As pointed out several other times in the comments, several commercial activities rely on WhatsApp on several levels. Even blocking for a few hours causes several man-hours to be spent in setting up alternatives. And lots of telephone costs, as well, since many companies - including those with technicians on the field, sometimes in another state - use that to communicate instead.
zanny 10y ago
That sounds incredibly dystopian. A proprietary communication protocol made by a foreign company dominating all communications without recourse sounds like something out of 1984. I mean, if your doctor is using it, you know you are screwed the day Facebook does anything you disagree with, because you are wholly dependent on them at that point. That was why we even developed interoperable federated messaging protocols over 15 years ago, apparently the world forgot about how bad the 90s were.
- 77pt77 10y ago
  > A proprietary communication protocol made by a foreign company dominating all communications without recourse sounds like something out of 1984. Yes but still better than orkut, I guess...
- edejong 10y ago
  Don't forget, a lot of diseases are hereditary, so your children are screwed as well.
- ralmeida 10y ago
  It's not without recourse. It's just a system that became a defacto standard. If WhatsApp goes away for good, surely everyone will move on to something else, maybe even considering the "centralizedness" of it, but the transition costs are there, especially on a case with such short notice.
- necessity 10y ago
  Dystopian only in the mind of a sci-fi fan. In practice it's a free communication service that helped millions to connect. No one forced people to use WhatsApp like something from 1984, people chose it from the various alternatives. In fact, a lot of people prefer Telegram, and a lot use neither, preferring good old cellphone conversations. Oh wait, isn't that a closed protocol that dominates all offline communications? How dystopian...
  - maus42 10y ago
    GSM (assuming that's what is used in Brazil) isn't free of patents, but at least everyone could (in theory) start their own telecom company and compete with the another ones. And I assume in reality (even in Brazil) customer could switch from a telecom operator to another if they are not happy with the service provided by the first one. If I want to communicate to some another WhatsApp user, I need to use WhatsApp.
rglullis 10y ago
That's quite an overstatement. People know how to adapt. On the first court order, people were posting on Facebook about how to connect using VPN providers. Millions others downloaded Telegram. I, for one, think that this kind of thing is a very good example on why we should NEVER rely on closed services. Whatsapp may be doing all of the right things (creating new features, improving privacy, keeping the product free and separate from FB), but it is still closed.
- krschultz 10y ago
  What's your definition of 'closed'?
  - a3_nm 10y ago
    I cannot interact with WhatsApp users without registering an account with WhatsApp and running proprietary code published by WhatsApp. Compare with email, where I can email friends at whatever provider without registering with them or having to run their code.
    - Freak_NL 10y ago
      Additionally, you can't even use WhatsApp without a mobile phone number, and effectively you need a smartphone with a supported mobile operating system of their choosing. That's pretty closed.
rmc 10y ago
Or maybe WhatsApp could comply with the law?
- ycombinatorMan 10y ago
  Others have said they don't have the data. How can they comply, then?
  - rmc 10y ago
    Well sounds like they basically ignored the court[1]. If you don't bother turning up to defend yourself in court, you'll almost certainly lose. WhatsApp should decide how much they care about Brazil. If they care, they could have bothered to send a lawyer. If they don't care, then they shouldn't complain about their service being cut off. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615056

samstave 10y ago

It's almost like Brazil is the most technologically advanced poor-3rd-world-nation I know from my brief time at Facebook, they use Brazil user-searches in their intro classes to tableau reporting on users' graphs - "show me everyone in Brazil who is 18 years old and posted about subject-X"

motoboi 10y ago
Brasil is the 8th economy in the world.
- erickhill 10y ago
  Perhaps the country has a large economy, but its people are being left behind. In the list of countries by average wage, they are 47th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w... And for the median household income, they aren't in the top 35, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
  - myth_drannon 10y ago
    The first wiki link data is weird. How is that even possible ? 25 Israel $1,804 26 Russia $1,800
    - Roodgorf 10y ago
      I'm not sure I understand what you're pointing out here. How is what possible, the Israel's average wage is $4 more than Russia's?
- fnbr 10y ago
  GDP per capita is the relevant metric here, as it's a much better gauge of how much money each person has. Using that metric, Brazil ranks 76th [0]. Ranking countries by nominal GDP [1] gives a lopsided view of the world's economy as you can have countries with very large populations of poor people that rank highly, such as China (#2) or India (#9). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
  - sndean 10y ago
    > GDP per capita is the relevant metric here Yeah, I was going to make a similar comment. Listing the wealth of nations based on nominal GDP will result in a list that's similar to ordering them by population size.
  - grecy 10y ago
    >as it's a much better gauge of how much money each person has You've got to be kidding me. The US has a massive GDP per capita but there are 30 million people struggling to survive without even healthcare. GDP per capita tells you nothing about how much each person has, it just tells you how much there is and how many people. How's it's split among them is another story.
    - aianus 10y ago
      > The US has a massive GDP per capita but there are 30 million people struggling to survive without even healthcare. Relatively few people personally need healthcare at any given time. In comparison to, say, clean water, food, shelter, education, and physical security, which actual third world countries seem to still have serious problems with.
      - grecy 10y ago
        > which actual third world countries seem to still have serious problems with. If you're comparing the US to actual third world countries, you've already lost.
nvk 10y ago
Brasil is not poor, is F*n corrupt.
- samstave 10y ago
  Thanks, this is the main comment I shall reply to: yes my comment was made in ignorance. Ignorance is the lacking of knowledge of the situation. I was not having the information I needed to make a fully informed comment, and thus I offended people, apologies.
bouk 10y ago
Calling Brazil a "poor-3rd-world-nation" is really ignorant, as it has a development index similar to Mexico, Turkey, Iran, Cuba: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...
- astrodust 10y ago
  São Paulo alone manages to rival New York City in scale, so it's absurd to call it "third world". Significant parts of Brazil lag behind in terms of development, but this is true in the US as well.
- tn13 10y ago
  Brazil is a poor third world nation. It might be developing fast but still far from reaching middle income levels.
- samstave 10y ago
  Sure but all the countries you mentioned are rife with corruption. Fuck those countries. I stand by my statement then: they are 3Rd world with respect to how they treat humans. Turkey is a corruption horror show. Mexicos death rate due to cartels is astronomical compared to every other country on earth. Cuba is still driving cars from the fifties and doesn't even have Internet, yet it houses our worst torture center that we know of (yes, all that is the fault of the US CIA) and Iran was an overthrown democracy (CIA again, thanks George) - but you cannot argue that they are not "3rd world" - we fucking kept them that way to exploit them.
soapdog 10y ago
Samstave, Just a bit of nitpick to save you some trouble in the future. Brazil is not poor. Brazil is the seventh world economy, if you count the number of nations in north america and europe, being the seventh world economy is a great deal. Also the division in 1st world and 3rd world is schewed upon today. Its akin to saying the N-word. There are much better, non-pejorative terms to be used. Brazil is a part of the BRICS or the world emerging countries. Right now it is in a huge political crisis and on the verge of a coup but it is not a poor-3rd-world-nation, it is a the world seventh economy and also dictating tendency for many emerging countries and a continental power in the south. That being said, you are completely correct that Brazilians love technology. Our smartphone revolution and expansion is awesome and we're keen to adopt new tech. Still more than half of the country doesn't have access to net infrastructure at their home and depends on cybercafes. If you want some real data on the technology adoption and usage in the country you can use the metrics and indicators from CETIC[0] which is the Brazilian Institute for the study of information technology usage and adoption. Their reports are awesome and will give you a much greater insight on internet usage in the country. [0]: http://cetic.br/ http://cetic.br/ PS: Sorry for the long rant, I work with digital inclusion and web literacy programs here in Brazil, unlocking new digital skills in low-income neighborhoods so I've been immersed in this type of thing for too long.
- kawera 10y ago
  Not a "coup", you know that.
- meira 10y ago
  Great response! (Y) Nice to see people like you here.
- aerovistae 10y ago
  Your analogy between the terms 1st/3rd world country and that particular racial epithet is beyond absurd. To confirm this just try saying one or the other at work to test the reactions you get.
  - soapdog 10y ago
twoarray 10y ago
Your comment was filled with the typical Valley arrogance and ignorance with anything outside of SoMa. Not only is Brazil not a poor-3rd-world-nation, but other similar developing nations are by far more "technologically advanced" (e.g. China, India).
- umanwizard 10y ago
  You obviously have no idea what you're talking about if you think China, Brazil, and India are all at similar levels of development.

intrasight 10y ago

"disastrous consequences"? Perhaps Brazilians should engage in some technological risk management.

raverbashing 10y ago

No, it won't have disastrous consequences. It happened last year as well Typical authoritarian act by a lower court judge that will be reversed in 1 or 2 days Nothing to see here

surye 10y ago
> Nothing to see here I feel like this is an overly dismissive attitude to have, even, or especially if, everything you said is true and this is some common behavior.
- coliveira 10y ago
  Unfortunately this became common for Brazilians in the last few years. Judges are perceived as having extraordinary powers over everyone's lives. In the last few months, lower court judges have blocked actions of the president of the republic. They have also put in jail some of the richest people in the country, supposedly for corruption, but also for political reasons.
  - raverbashing 10y ago
    > They have also put in jail some of the richest people in the country, supposedly for corruption, but also for political reasons. Yes, the owner of the biggest construction company in Brazil, that had a sector dedicated for paying bribes, was "supposedly" arrested for corruption. What a joke
ralmeida 10y ago
Depends on how you define disastrous. As pointed out several other times in the comments, several commercial activities rely on WhatsApp on several levels. Even blocking for a few hours causes several man-hours to be spent in setting up alternatives. And lots of telephone costs, as well, since many companies - including those with technicians on the field, sometimes in another state - use that to communicate instead.

zanny 10y ago

That sounds incredibly dystopian. A proprietary communication protocol made by a foreign company dominating all communications without recourse sounds like something out of 1984. I mean, if your doctor is using it, you know you are screwed the day Facebook does anything you disagree with, because you are wholly dependent on them at that point. That was why we even developed interoperable federated messaging protocols over 15 years ago, apparently the world forgot about how bad the 90s were.

77pt77 10y ago
> A proprietary communication protocol made by a foreign company dominating all communications without recourse sounds like something out of 1984. Yes but still better than orkut, I guess...
edejong 10y ago
Don't forget, a lot of diseases are hereditary, so your children are screwed as well.
ralmeida 10y ago
It's not without recourse. It's just a system that became a defacto standard. If WhatsApp goes away for good, surely everyone will move on to something else, maybe even considering the "centralizedness" of it, but the transition costs are there, especially on a case with such short notice.
necessity 10y ago
Dystopian only in the mind of a sci-fi fan. In practice it's a free communication service that helped millions to connect. No one forced people to use WhatsApp like something from 1984, people chose it from the various alternatives. In fact, a lot of people prefer Telegram, and a lot use neither, preferring good old cellphone conversations. Oh wait, isn't that a closed protocol that dominates all offline communications? How dystopian...
- maus42 10y ago
  GSM (assuming that's what is used in Brazil) isn't free of patents, but at least everyone could (in theory) start their own telecom company and compete with the another ones. And I assume in reality (even in Brazil) customer could switch from a telecom operator to another if they are not happy with the service provided by the first one. If I want to communicate to some another WhatsApp user, I need to use WhatsApp.

rglullis 10y ago

That's quite an overstatement. People know how to adapt. On the first court order, people were posting on Facebook about how to connect using VPN providers. Millions others downloaded Telegram. I, for one, think that this kind of thing is a very good example on why we should NEVER rely on closed services. Whatsapp may be doing all of the right things (creating new features, improving privacy, keeping the product free and separate from FB), but it is still closed.

krschultz 10y ago
What's your definition of 'closed'?
- a3_nm 10y ago
  I cannot interact with WhatsApp users without registering an account with WhatsApp and running proprietary code published by WhatsApp. Compare with email, where I can email friends at whatever provider without registering with them or having to run their code.
  - Freak_NL 10y ago
    Additionally, you can't even use WhatsApp without a mobile phone number, and effectively you need a smartphone with a supported mobile operating system of their choosing. That's pretty closed.

rmc 10y ago

Or maybe WhatsApp could comply with the law?

ycombinatorMan 10y ago
Others have said they don't have the data. How can they comply, then?
- rmc 10y ago
  Well sounds like they basically ignored the court[1]. If you don't bother turning up to defend yourself in court, you'll almost certainly lose. WhatsApp should decide how much they care about Brazil. If they care, they could have bothered to send a lawyer. If they don't care, then they shouldn't complain about their service being cut off. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615056