7 ms·
Can't help but feel that the world would be a slightly better place if it stayed this way.
by katmannthree 5y ago
Can't help but feel that the world would be a slightly better place if it stayed this way.
- ferdowsi 5y agoAgreed. The theoretical fat-fingering SRE who stopped all access to FB has probably done more to benefit humanity than any other single engineer in recent memory.
- aroman 5y agoMany pockets of humanity are materially worse off today because of these outages. The (perhaps sad) reality is that tens of thousands of small businesses are completely dependent on WhatsApp and Instagram, especially in developing countries. This outage will cause lots of lost business by people who don't have massive cash reserves to ride out the lost revenue, unlike Facebook itself.
- cma 5y agoIf it helps them break free of the facebook ecosystem/tax authority it could still be good even if expensive in the short-term.
- caballeto 5y agoBusinesses which rely on Facebook, as their sole distribution channel could get out of business if Facebook goes out. A lot of economical value will be lost.
- ForHackernews 5y agoAllowing copyrights to expire on pre-1950 creative works would also destroy billions of dollars of "economic value", but that doesn't mean it would be bad for humanity. We should be careful to not take our values from a spreadsheet.
- jkestner 5y agoMaybe they should not have a single point of failure. FAANG is not good for our economy’s resilience.
- duderific 5y agoMany of these businesses are small single-person operations with little tech understanding that are using, for example, FB marketplace. They wouldn't even know what you meant by "single point of failure."
- jkestner 5y agoHow about “putting all your eggs in one basket”? If this is the event that teaches someone that Facebook is not the Internet, that’s a benefit to us all.
- snuser 5y agoSad!
- katmannthree 5y agoWould these be the same developing countries where Facebook has helped facilitate genocide? Seriously though, is the net utility of Facebook even positive there? It’s not like those businesses couldn’t interact with their customers over literally any other medium.
- Levitz 5y agoThose businesses should have never depended on Facebook to begin with, if anything the fact that what you describe is a reality is a testimony of the degree at which Facebook is a cancer to be expunged.
- samhw 5y agoEven if we accept that's true, it still makes no difference to the fact that this outage has harmed those people.
- whydoyoucare 5y agoNetwork effect, so businesses have no one else to depend on.
- elzbardico 5y agoJesus man! We’ve lockdown some business for months, they are back, they found alternatives like delivery and you’re telling me that one day without WhatsApp or Facebook is going to be a tragedy?
- barbazoo 5y agoThey should get a raise!
- coffeefirst 5y agoAnd some kind of Medal of Honor.
- zxcvbn4038 5y agoThe poor guy though - he made Zuck blink. And when Zuck blinks, people die!!!
- hinkley 5y agoIf they get fired we may be looking at a GoFundMe situation.
- stickfigure 5y agoSome of us use these services to communicate with our friends.
- unfunco 5y agoCan we nominate them for a Nobel Peace Prize?
- MarcelOlsz 5y agoMy general anxiety is already lifting a little.
- Denvercoder9 5y agoYou should consider that WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are the primary communication method for large parts of the globe. The world might be better off if we transitioned off them, but having them cease to exist without any warning most definitely won't make the world better off.
- toastercat 5y ago> having them cease to exist without any warning most definitely won't make the world better off. It may indirectly, in that it may spur a transition to another platform. Most likely, that platform will also be a privacy-invading centralized service, but in an ideal world it would be something like XMPP, Matrix, etc.
- elzbardico 5y agoPeople would be using telegram or signal for business in less than one day. Nobody would ever think about WhatsApp in one month. People that uses Facebook as their photo album would be pissed with losing some old photos taken with digital point and shoot cameras. Stalkers of former boyfriends and girlfriends would be inconsolable for a few weeks but then move on and be better with it. There would be a great cultural loss in the disappearance of some groups and even some profiles of very interesting people. But they would resurface, in blogs, telegram channels, forums and whatever else appeared to fill the vacuum. Nobody misses myspace. Nobody would miss Facebook. And eventually Facebook will disappear.
- pmlnr 5y agoBut it does. People need to learn to have fallbacks and backups, and the vast majority of them is only willing to learn this the hard way - see backups vs. losing something important.
- ricardo81 5y agoPeople can surprisingly adapt though, especially if it's a matter of survival. I've slummed it learning a new OS or using a new keyboard, within a couple of weeks you forget you had to change anything. At the very least there are choices in many circumstances.
- rcurry 5y agoFacebook said they are working hard to “get things back to normal”. But so far things seem more normal without them.
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoEveryone in my country uses WhatsApp. It would be a mild inconvenience to switch to Telegram or Signal. And I'm afraid I'm not naive enough to think that other companies wouldn't turn to the Dark Side. All of Silicon Valley, perhaps all of the tech industry is evil.
- entropyneur 5y agoHave you people considered like, not using it? I, for one, enjoy Facebook and am happy it exists even if some aspects are not to my liking.
- colinmhayes 5y agoThe problem is that Facebook is disinforming people and just getting rid of everyone isn't an option.
- entropyneur 5y agoBy "Facebook disinforming" people do you mean people disinforming people using Facebook? Or has Facebook inc. itself been a source of misinformation?
- colinmhayes 5y agoFacebook's algorithm prioritizes divisive political content that is commonly disinformation because it increases engagement. Yes, people are creating and sharing the disinformation, but facebook itself is choosing to rank that content highly.
- entropyneur 5y agoSo Facebook facilitates the spread of engaging content which happens to include disinformation because due to our imperfect nature people like to engage with disinformation. Seems like wishing that Facebook wouldn't exist because of this is analogous to wishing that airfare wouldn't exist because it facilitates global spread of infections. Also, the word "divisive" gives me shivers. It's better to be divided than to be united in a fallacy. And in many cases getting divided is our only hope of ever arriving at the truth.
- colinmhayes 5y agoIt's not the divisiveness that upsets me, I agree with "And in many cases getting divided is our only hope of ever arriving at the truth." It's the fact that facebook is propagandizing people because it's shoving the divisive content in their face nonstop without understanding if it's disinformation first. There will always be false content on social media, but I don't think that means facebook gets a pass for actively encouraging it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ReptileMan 5y agoYou mistake Facebook with Twitter. Twitter dying will be a boon to humanity
- silisili 5y agoHey now, no need to be selective, let's knock them both out and get rid of the worst of people on both sides!
- ufmace 5y agoAlas, if Facebook went down for good, they would probably be replaced by something even worse.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]