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Facebook going down meant more than just a social network being unavailable

• strogonoff 5y ago
  Why break Facebook down instead of requiring large social platforms to provide exhaustive open APIs? The latter is much more constructive, purely technical, and instead of levelling field as a one-off actually lays down the foundation required for a heterogenous social tech landscape. Meanwhile, the breaking down is political, and does not address the underlying mechanics that will keep producing these quasi-monopolies.
  • annadane 5y ago
    Don't say that on here, you'll get the droves coming in with their talking points of "But open APIs are how cambridge analytica happened"
• avereveard 5y ago
  If you have WhatsApp you used an email to install it from an app store and you have the other person phone contact. The solution is obvious, but social outrage seems more important.
• variant 5y ago
  There are myriad options for communications. Being "regulated" won't make any of them more or less reliable (though probably will insulate them even further from competition).
• teekert 5y ago
  Yeah, yesterday evening I could only communicate to myb Signal buddies, about 50% of my chatting traffic. Sadly, everything "official" (like kids/school related things) is still only on WhatsApp.
• sisjohn 5y ago
  I agree with this one; there's a lot of business that runs through Facebook. It greatly depends on the platform as their means of communication.
• runawaybottle 5y ago
  The main issue with WhatsApp as the primary platform of communication is that it’s exclusive. You can’t actually switch to Signal and continue with business because you’d need everyone to switch with you. Tech has yet to go through it’s ‘industrialization’ phase where one of the main advents was replaceable/interchangeable parts. WhatsApp cannot be pointed to another network, it’s total vendor lock-in. Today happened at a non-critical time. If this happened during a hurricane, or any other disaster, the critical nature would be exposed. Right now we’re just amused, but the implications are real. Facebook has way more accountability in all of this than just, as Zuckerberg said ‘Senator, we sell ads’.
  • tuatoru 5y ago
    > Tech has yet to go through it’s ‘industrialization’ phase where one of the main advents was replaceable/interchangeable parts. Not going to happen without legislation. Maybe not even with it. Industrial standardization was driven by the US Army around and after the time of the Civil War. The Army wanted rifle parts to be replaceable by any spare of the same type, not only those from the same batch as the gun. There is no large single buyer with "social" apps, and the incentives for vendors are to try to lock in their customers.
  • kitkat_new 5y ago
    That's why instant messaging needs open standards like Matrix, which make switching apps and provider a nobrainer, because it almost wouldn't matter which one you would loose. Additionally, only one of many service proviers would be seriously affected if a service goes down. matrix.org
    • timbit42 5y ago
      ...or use Tox and no service providers would be affected because it's 100% decentralized.
    • zwieback 5y ago
      SMS is sort of that, right, at least a crude form?
• ecdavis 5y ago
  Late last year here in Australia, I remember ACT Health announced a major change to the territory's COVID restrictions exclusively on Facebook Live one afternoon and didn't update their website until the following morning. Highly inconvenient for someone without Facebook looking to visit the territory.
  • woutr_be 5y ago
    While I understand the relevance to the tweet, at least to me, this isn't Facebook's fault, but rather the government's for using a private companies' platform, instead of it's own website. I understand why so many companies and services are piggybacking on Facebook/WhatsApp, but they should always have a fallback, in case their single third-party service goes down.
• smoldesu 5y ago
  Why do we even let corporations own things that we consider "utilities"? Seems like a case of people being perfectly happy with using a free service until it breaks, then it's all a shitstorm. If WhatsApp's mere existence is enough to warrant deregulation, what does that mean for platforms like iMessage, which fundamentally fill the same role?
  • krapp 5y ago
    It's not a utility, and it shouldn't be considered one.
    • mandmandam 5y ago
      It's more of a utility, and to more people, than rotary phones were.
      • igetspam 5y ago
        Which also were not a utility... Rotary phones are an interface to a utility. But let's be realistic, the copper required to connect homes to each other required a massive public works effort. Facebook turned on a server and ran some PHP to stalk college women. Big difference.
        • mandmandam 5y ago
          Ah right so. Well if we're being pedantic like that, I guess my oven is just an interface to the gas line, and my lights are just an interface to the leccy lines. Guess I don't need to pay my utility bills, which is great news because they're gone through the roof.
          • jkelleyrtp 5y ago
            The government doesn’t make ovens or light bulbs, but does maintain the infrastructure. I think there’s a distinction to be made there.
        • 5y ago
• ALittleLight 5y ago
  "You have built, bought, or maintained a product which is vital to billions. It's a free service unavailable 0.01% of the year. For this you must be punished."
  • cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    Oh, yeah, Zuckerberg is a real Howard Roark. Please.
    • ALittleLight 5y ago
      Whatever you think of Zuckerberg, Ayn Rand, or politics, it's unquestionable that Zuckerberg and Facebook have built, bought and maintained useful services used by billions. That's literally what the featured tweet is complaining about - Whatsapp is so crucial for so many it's like a utility.
      • oska 5y ago
        This is so disingenuous. From day one, Facebook have done all in their power to make themselves a monopoly while simultaneously trying to avoid all of the legal restrictions that normally apply to a utility service.
        • whitepaint 5y ago
          Yeah, FB has made incredibly smart business choices.
          • oska 5y ago
            FB is a toxic, sociopathic company, led by a sociopath. Full stop. Talking about its 'incredibly smart business choices' is like talking about the 'smart moves' a serial killer took to avoid capture for years & years. Interesting to some perhaps, but obviously not worthy of any admiration.
  • aaron695 5y ago
• azangru 5y ago
  Why is the conclusion in that tweet "the billionth reason to break down and regulate Facebook" rather than "the billionth reason not to use whatsapp as the de facto phone and text messaging platform"?
  • jbotz 5y ago
    Because it isn't a question of individual choice. I use Signal as much as possible, but here in Brazil it seems WhatsApp/Facebook has some deal with all the cellular operators by which the a) give customers "unlimited WhatsApp usage" that doesn't count against their 3 or 5 GB/month internet usage quotas, and b) give WhatsApp traffic preference when their networks are congested, meaning that sometimes Signal messages don't get delivered immediately but WhatsApp messages do. Really. The "unlimited WhatsApp usage" as part of a basic plan alone means that Signal doesn't have a chance. Most people hit their quota limits during a typical month, and that means no more Signal messages/calls. I'm sure it's similar in many other countries.
    • LuciusVerus 5y ago
      Yes, plus it's pointless trying to get my family to use Signal - they don't want to download an additional app to talk to me.
      • sneak 5y ago
        They will have to if you delete your WA account.
        • maratc 5y ago
          The other option for them would be not to talk to GP at all.
          • skohan 5y ago
            This is more likely imo
• bastard_op 5y ago
  It was almost like the fallout of in 2012 when GoDaddy went down with their internal network collapsing. Being a very large registrar, root certificate authority, and a number of other significant hosting resources, half the internet died that day with it. I guess you can at least sense "what if facebook went offline?" if just by employee fubar, or if say the government shut them down China-style (or US probably ought to).
• darth_avocado 5y ago
  I know it’s hard for a lot of people but why do we automatically blame everything on Facebook? The inaccessibility to WhatsApp completely brings life to a standstill for a lot of people across the world. Isn’t that more of a failure on the part of the governments, people and companies that exist there? How is a app that needs access to internet somehow a bigger necessity than the basic function of the device the app was installed in: Calls and texts? Shouldn’t we focus on making those services accessible and affordable? Instead of demanding Facebook be responsible for everything?
  • leokennis 5y ago
    Yes, there is a lot of blame on governments for relying on WA. But let's be real here, Facebook is also marketing WA as a better alternative to sms, mail etc. So if Facebook wants to position WA as critical communications infrastructure, they should maintain it as such.
    • merrywhether 5y ago
      WA _is_ a better alternative to SMS and mail. Outs not the only one perhaps, but that doesn’t make that statement less true.
  • MaKey 5y ago
    Calls can be listened to and texts can be read by Governments. In my opinion that's unlikely to change so there will always be a good reason to use apps like WhatsApp or Signal for communication.
    • herbst 5y ago
      Yep that's why Signal, Threma and Telegram are big. But how would that explain Whatsapp success? The US gov obviously had and likely has access to the WhatsApp infrastructure
  • ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "Shouldn’t we focus on making those services accessible and affordable? " This. If calls and international calls were acessible, whatsapp wouldnt exist
• elzbardico 5y ago
  ICQ was once the king of the hill, then Msn messenger, for a short time google talk, then WhatsApp. People find alternatives, things change all the time
  • grishka 5y ago
    But every time there are more people than the previous time. This means it's getting harder for everyone to switch. And then there's this: I have no idea about other countries, but over here in Russia, instant messaging got somehow consolidated over time. I used to have to run ICQ (as qip), Mail.Ru agent, Skype, and VKontakte (in a web browser) to be able to talk to everyone. Now Telegram and VKontakte cover 99% of my IM use. Some people do use WhatsApp, but not in my circles, thankfully. Some people have managed to delete their VK accounts without inconveniencing themselves and others much, but I'm not able to do that. Overall, the more users a social app has, the harder it becomes to switch away from it. Also — those old IM services only had one-to-one chats, but all the current ones have group chats, which make switching immensely harder. Can't imagine myself switching away from Telegram in the future for example.
    • system2 5y ago
      How long did it take for people to switch from Instagram / Vine to TikTok?
      • darkwater 5y ago
        Right now, an infinite amount of time. Instagram is well alive (beside yesterday...), and has a fair amount of shared users with TikTok.
• TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  I ditched WhatsApp when I switched from Android to iOS and WhatsApp would not import my history. I lost years of texting and image history, and just decided there was no reason to use WhatsApp if they can’t keep my history (possibly the most important part of texting including the images!)
  • secondaryacct 5y ago
    I went the reverse way: why keep so much history of every little thing I said or heard, let it be transient it's much more fun.
  • MaKey 5y ago
    This feature is coming: https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/11/22619664/whatsapp-android-ios-chat-history-transfer-cross-platform https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/11/22619664/whatsapp-android...
    • TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      Too late for me. I won’t use them again.
• TedShiller 5y ago
  True. It meant being free from big waste of time.
• sneak 5y ago
  This is an accident, and in peacetime. Relying on WhatsApp for anything important (like your business) is madness, and I hope this serves as your wake-up call that giving the US government and a giant US ad network veto power over your basic personal and professional communications is not a good choice.
  • thawkins 5y ago
    Absolutely, plus I have seen a bunch of people going mental about not being able to reach friends or family because WhatsApp is down, when WhatsApp uses the person's phone number as a means of addressing messages, just dial them and talk to them or send them a text... People can be a little dim sometimes and forget that the primary function of a phone IS communications, and not just a platform for running apps.
    • sneak 5y ago
      Texts are super expensive and don't always work between countries, and are even more censored than WhatsApp, and can't always attach images or video or voice (or are even more ludicrously expensive if they can). It's madness.
  • askonomm 5y ago
    Entire Latin America relies on whatsapp. From government services and doctor appointments to pretty much any business there is. It is such a vital part of the infrastructure that I don't know what would happen if it went down. I mean I even got vaccinated via whatsapp here in Argentina.
    • sneak 5y ago
      More people need to use these services and explain to the operators "I don't have WhatsApp". Silently caving and giving your data to Facebook perpetuates the status quo. They will offer alternatives if a few percent of people simply refuse to agree to the Facebook TOS.
    • system2 5y ago
• Jugurtha 5y ago
  How does the author come to the conclusion to break Facebook down and regulate it after the outage ? There are a lot of power outages in the world by companies that are regulated, sometimes even state-owned.
  • dilyevsky 5y ago
    Maybe the intent is to have it down more often? I think you’re assuming these empty moralizing statements aren’t just made for the clicks…
    • Jugurtha 5y ago
      >Maybe the intent is to have it down more often? It would have been a well put snarky tweet if that were the intent. >I think you’re assuming these empty moralizing statements aren’t just made for the clicks… I am guilty of not immediately considering people who write these things as attention seeking virtue signaling consensus wanting idiots; I may as well be the idiot failing to understand what they're saying.
  • mrpopo 5y ago
    I think the point of breaking down Facebook into smaller entities is to reduce centralization of operations, and thus the impact of single-point failures. The same conclusion should be made of a giant state-owned company.
    • whitepaint 5y ago
      What about Cloudflare? Should it be illegal?
      • kevingadd 5y ago
        Cloudflare and Whatsapp are not comparable. The relationships are different (CF provides hosting for individual businesses or services, Whatsapp facilitates person-to-person communication), the switching costs are different (most or all CF customers can on a reasonable time delay switch to a different provider with 0 downtime, while 'switching' away from whatsapp requires moving your entire social graph to a new app), and the impact of an outage is different (some or all CF-based services are degraded/down vs you can't communicate with anyone from your social graph unless you can reach them on the phone or in person) Or for a basic summary: Cloudflare is interoperable, and the damage done by a CF outage may be widespread but it's limited to CF customers. Whatsapp isn't interoperable and an outage effectively shuts off wireless/internet communications for a sizable chunk of the earth's population. It certainly shouldn't be that way. There are probably other ways you could combat this instead of just breaking up FB - for example some telcos give special deals to Facebook and Whatsapp so they're cheaper than competitors, and they're already often cheaper than SMS. You could fix that. But centralization can be fought directly on US soil by breaking the company up, while fixing those issues I mentioned has to be done legally on a country by country basis.
• hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  Was talking about this with a friend today, and I think this incident highlights why I sometimes get really depressed about my career and technology. I'm a Gen X-er, and I started my career in the late 90s. Before that I was a ham radio operator in junior high and HS (back when they had Morse code tests!). I remember the heady euphoria around the Internet then, and the vision of "tech utopia" was certainly the dominant one: the Internet would bring a "democratization of information" where anyone with a computer could connect to the Internet, publish a website, and communicate with people across the world. Really cool new services came online frequently. I still remember the first time I used Google, and at the time I was blown away by how good it was ("like magic!" I said) because the results were so much better than other search engines of the time. But these days, the older I get the more and more I feel like tech is having a negative impact on both society at large and me personally. In the 90s we all thought the Internet would lead to a decentralization of power, but literally the exact opposite happened. Sure, telcos sucked, but there were tons of them spread across all corners of the globe. Now there is 1 single megacorp that a sizable portion of humanity depends on for phone/text communication. It just makes me sad. Sure, there are pluses to tech I'm ignoring here, but I just think that how reality turned out so 180 from the expectations of the late 90s is what really hurts.
  • Dumblydorr 5y ago
    Optimism about new media tech doesn't survive long when average humans get their hands on it. It's all fun when it's computer enthusiasts only, but when FB or Twitter makes it so even the least considerate, most highly misinformed, and most toxic individuals can reach hundreds of others...that's the other tail of the distribution, that's the snake oil salesmen, conspiracists, religious fanatics, assholes, jerks, and all the people we used to go online to avoid.
  • fidesomnes 5y ago
    > I'm a Gen X-er none of this has anything to do with you. good night and please don't do this again.
  • corobo 5y ago
    Facebook and other social gardens took the Star Trek out of the internet In a related thought that'll probably be when the next big internet wave happens - spaceships and colonies offline-first until a data sync drone flies by Designing for offline is designing for cool
• annadane 5y ago
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/09/26/exclusive-whatsapp-cofounder-brian-acton-gives-the-inside-story-on-deletefacebook-and-why-he-left-850-million-behind https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/09/26/exclusive...
• jkelleyrtp 5y ago
  Why would breaking Facebook down and regulating them solve anything related to the global dependence on WhatsApp? Aren’t the only people who know how to run these services already running them? Like, do we expect the government to take WhatsApp away from Facebook and then create government contracts for companies like Oracle to maintain the infrastructure? So we’re back to square one but with the bureaucratic mess of the government involved? The answer to all of this is very rarely “break it apart and give it to the government.” It might work for utilities and public works, but do we seriously believe that apps - the interfaces of the utilities - need to be regulated? I don’t get these arguments, and I see them everywhere.
  • havelhovel 5y ago
    Also the author cites Palestinians and Israelis both relying on WhatsApp as justification for breaking down and regulating Facebook. Pray tell, if nationalized, how many nations would be impartial enough to let both sides continue to use such an (apparently) essential communication platform?
    • smt88 5y ago
      No one is proposing nationalizing WhatsApp or Facebook. I have no idea who you're arguing against, but it's not the author of this thread.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • havelhovel 5y ago
        The parent comment spoke directly of nationalization. I was indulging their scenario, not seeking to argue with the original Tweet’s author or anyone in particular.
  • smt88 5y ago
• narcissismo 5y ago
  On the upside, several billion people saw their mental health improve briefly.
• protomyth 5y ago
  I'm confused. Isn't the problem here that networking is too fragile and we really need to look at fixing the bottom of the internet?
• geuis 5y ago
  This highly illustrated a point for me this morning. My oldest friend is in a foreign country and has no support network. He left his job yesterday and was overall having a terrible day. He desperately needed me to call him, and WhatsApp has been our primary contact medium since he left the US. Fast forward to this morning and literally in between “I’ll call you in a few minutes” while I was finishing up morning stuff, WhatsApp suddenly switched to “Connecting…”. Error messages that appeared were generally along the lines of “you aren’t connected to the internet” although clearly I was. Meanwhile I was completely separated from my buddy who needed someone to talk to. Until news popped up that FB was having issues I had no idea what was happening. Personally this reflects poorly on WhatsApp’s design. The error messages don’t make sense and are inconsistent. Clearly their devs aren’t testing for this situation. More alarmingly, it initially looked like chat was working during the outage. I haven’t confirmed this yet, but I sent sent multiple chat messages that locally appeared to go through while the video/audio connect options were hidden by the “Connecting…” text. Luckily email still works and I was able to get confirmation my friend was ok, and we had a good lengthy conversation a few hours ago once FB systems came back up.
  • frabcus 5y ago
    Out of interest, why didn't you agree over email to switch to Telegram/Signal/Skype/Snapchat Video and have the call immediately?
• sMarsIntruder 5y ago
  I’m all against the Facebook ecosystem, but no, Facebook doesn’t need to be regulated. IMHO Governments should stop babysitting people on all the matters.
• EthOptimist 5y ago
  If you compare Facebook's uptime vs Reddit it is no contest. Granted, it isn't as widely used compared to Facebook Login, WhatsApp etc. but still it's impressive
  • kevingadd 5y ago
    Reddit isn't remotely comparable to Whatsapp.
• jmfldn 5y ago
  Social media and messenger communication should be based on common protocols allowing different networks and services to be connected. I should be able to message you on your application from my different application because neither are walled gardens and are under-pinned by a common protocol. I can phone anyone on any network anywhere in the world or email them regardless of their provider. This has to be no different. Hardly a new idea, and I know such things exist in embryonic form, but it really seems like the only future I would want with regards to these technologies. Obviously the barriers to this are immense, how would you get Facebook to let go of its walled garden? This will kill a lot of businesses. I'm not saying it's likely to happen but I still think we must strive for something like this. It wouldn't stop profitable products from being built but they would be equivalent to email clients. Obviously far less profitable than owning that user and their data. The social good that would come from this though would be immense.
• streamofdigits 5y ago
  The elephants in the room are the countless "governments" around the world that not only have sold their citizens' data sovereignty lock stock and barrel but generated a strategic vulnerability of major proportions. In the name of what and why? Free markets? How is a total monopoly a free market. Modernity? How is this neofeudalism / neocolonialism in any shape and form progress? Hopefully the 600+ journalists that just released the pandora papers (documenting the widespread deceit and corruption of worldwide elites) will also cast some light into how we came to be in this deplorable state (who benefited, who signed of, who didn't ask any question)
• lionkor 5y ago
  Offtopic reminder that Matrix supports voice and video calls via p2p
• _trackno5 5y ago
  I don't get this post. Yes a lot of people rely on Whatsapp, but what does the fact the company had an outage have to do with regulation? There are other means of communication that people can fallback to. Your smartphone can still make calls and send SMS.
• mastrsushi 5y ago
  >We need to break down and regulate Facebook Good luck
• rendall 5y ago
  I despise the company that Facebook is, and hope that it crashes and burns in ignominy such that by comparison we remember AOL fondly. That said, I'm utterly alarmed by calls such as this to "regulate" Facebook. We really want to legitimize f*cking Facebook like that by nationalizing / turning it into a utility? Then we'll be stuck with it for-goddamn-ever Let's stick to principles, enforce existing (or write effective) anti-monopoly, consumer- and data- protection laws. And, I'm fine with taking the karma hit if even one person hears this: You. Yes, you, reading this. Stop bitching about Facebook and delete your account. We as a society can neither build nor evaluate anything better while you, and yes, I mean you, you specifically, reading this, use Facebook. Especially when you rationalize it by reference to the fact that everyone else is on it. Kick that crutch out from under yourself and learn how to keep in touch with friends, family and that cute barista without compromise. Delete your account. Thank you for listening.
  • streamofdigits 5y ago
    agree, there is only one stab at the vampire, and it better be the right instrument at the right place imho its the freaking business model that is the core of the problem. everything else (monopoly, poor regulation, dark patterns etc) are things the world has seen before, again and again but we have never (in recent times) seen such amoral political and market endorsement of what is essentially a dehumanizing societal regression: they treat their (largely unsuspecting and ignorant or captive) human users as classifiable, data minable, bidable data objects. Nothing good will ever come out of that. This is a practice that simply has to be tarnished as contravening basic (digital) human rights and incompatible with any society that has any pretense to cohesion and fairness. NB: they are neither the first nor the only ones following this heinous business model but their are its single most effective promulgator
    • rendall 5y ago
      Well said! ::golf clap::
  • smt88 5y ago
    > That said, I'm utterly alarmed by calls such as this to "regulate" Facebook. We really want to legitimize fcking Facebook like that by nationalizing / turning it into a utility?* The govt is attempting to regulate Facebook by breaking it up, not by centralizing it. Facebook is guaranteed to maintain its market share if it can continue to buy and operate competitors.
• carlmr 5y ago
  For me it mostly made me realize how little I do need Facebook, didn't really think about it much yesterday. WhatsApp was the only thing that really mattered, and for that there are decent alternatives.
• oytis 5y ago
  How do people go from "we like your app and use it a lot" to "your app is not yours anymore"? Why not think about diversifying your own communications instead, there are plenty of options available.
• vdddv 5y ago
  I don't understand how "No Whatsapp = no way to communicate to relatives". Are SMS not available in some countries?
  • ComodoHacker 5y ago
    At certain age and health conditions, the only viable communication media you have left are voice and/or visual.
    • vdddv 5y ago
      and you can't use your voice on phone if whatsapp is down?
      • ComodoHacker 5y ago
        If you're in another country, this can be expensive.
  • robjan 5y ago
    How about people who don't live in their home country?
  • Frost1x 5y ago
    There are so many alternative communication systems besides Whatsapp and Facebook owned systems. Had I not checked HN and other news sources, I wouldn't have even noticed Facebook was down. I communicate domestically and internationally. I use LINE for international communications but there are plenty of additional options.
• throwawaybchr 5y ago
  If you used Facebook to login to some other service then that account also essentially became inaccessible
• shmel 5y ago
  I really don't get the point about WA outage being a catastrophe. WA pretty much forces you to put all phone numbers in your contacts to communicate to anyone at all (ok, except group chats to an extent). Why can't you just send an SMS? Why can't you call? Even if it is across the border, just send an SMS: "hey buddy, WA is down, install telegram so we can talk tonight as we agreed to". I could understand the same argument about FB Messenger, I do occasionally talk to people I have no contacts except Messenger. But we also talk once a month or so, a few hours of outage isn't a huge deal, is it?
  • mytherin 5y ago
    In my experience many people have outdated phone numbers on Whatsapp, since changing phone numbers on Whatsapp requires all your contacts to update your contact manually. This happens in particular for people that move between countries frequently. Why go through the trouble of updating Whatsapp to your current phone number, especially if you still have access to your old phone number for when you move back to your home country.
    • robjan 5y ago
      When you update your phone number, as long as you register the transfer in WhatsApp (as opposed to creating a new account) it's pretty seamless. There's no need for everyone to update your contact.
      • mytherin 5y ago
        The UI makes you believe that is the case, but people that still have your old contact will send messages to your old number and you will not receive those messages. See also their FAQ on the website [1]. To stay connected with your contacts, we recommend you inform them about your new phone number before changing phone numbers and ask them to make any necessary changes in their phones’ address books. I ran into this problem when I changed my number while temporarily staying abroad. After switching back to my old SIM I suddenly got a bunch of messages that I had missed from people who messaged my old phone number. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/account-and-profile/about-changing-phone-numbers https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/account-and-profile/about-c...
• pgt 5y ago
  Phone numbers should act like URIs that resolve to one or more contacts via "DNS".
  • djakaitis 5y ago
    http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2916.html http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2916.html
• rybosworld 5y ago
  It's crazy to me that people can have this viewpoint. Facebook has built a product that lots of people use because other services can't/won't match it. Then it goes down because things happen. And you want to break down and regulate the innovator? I don't understand how that could be the answer. If there's a surefire way to turn a useful service into one that never improves again, this is it.
• theelous3 5y ago
  While in large part I can't help but agree with the sentiment - at the same time - this is a well established risk. At some point, it's your own fault for relying on $megacorp_product instead of adopting an alternative.
• mro_name 5y ago
  aha, did it? I can't agree. Time for a change, time for emancipation if it is.