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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 stan

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
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  > This. If calls and international calls were acessible, whatsapp wouldnt exist Whatsapp offers a whole lot more: read receipts, group chats, images and video, voice notes, location sharing, a web client (albeit a quite limited one), and it has a generally pretty good UX/UI (much better than Androids stock messaging app). Regardless of the economics, on a technical level calling/texting isn't competitive with Whatsapp.
  - dvtrn 5y ago
    What ever became of RCS? Wasn’t that supposed to support a good number of these features?
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      It requires news infrastructure on the telco side as well as client-side support: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services There seems to be only lukewarm support for it from all parties involved. (Apple isn't even bothering to do much/anything, so that's a huge installed base where nothing is happening.)
    - wyldfire 5y ago
      RCS tries to offer the feature set of WA and iMessage while engaging the mobile operator. WhatsApp and iMessage are "over the top" services that "only" leverage mobile data / TCP etc. RCS was an awful compromise in order to pander to the telcos. Being a simple data service avoids a lot of the problems introduced by cellular infrastructure. We can expect all of the same functionality/robustness/compatibility issues of SMS/MMS.
      - 5y ago
GoodJokes 5y ago
Who do you think lobbies against public services like this? Facebook. Yes we should demand governments regulate Facebook as the bad actor it is.
DantesKite 5y ago
The demand is to not make Facebook responsible for everything. They shouldn't be in charge in what's ostensibly a public utility for most of the planet.
paxys 5y ago
We did focus on making the services accessible and affordable. Then phone providers and ISPs took the goverment funds and went "nah". As late as 2005 I was paying AT&T ~$9/minute to call my family abroad and up to $1 per text. If it weren't for tech companies like Skype/WhatsApp/Facebook/Google I have no doubt that would still be the case today.
- forgotpwd16 5y ago
  That's my experience as well. Not sure why tweet's author thinks government will necessarily improve rather worsen a service.
- gruez 5y ago
  >We did focus on making the services accessible and affordable. Then phone providers and ISPs took the goverment funds and went "nah" 1. I hear this narrative a lot. is there more to this? I find it hard to believe that the government gave phone providers/ISPs $$$ no strings attached. 2. giving $$$ to companies to expand their infrastructure make sense to increase accessibility, but doesn't to make it more affordable. they'll charge what the market can bear, and a few hundred million in government funding isn't going to change that, unless there are strings attached (see above). otherwise we'll end up getting better coverage/speeds, but it will still cost roughly the same.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-psc-reaches-settlement-with-centurylink-for-service-violations/article_0c8c0e55-589a-5e31-adf6-5bed75ee3c5e.html https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-psc-r... The major providers are notorious for not upgrading their infrastructure. The bizarre decision to "punish" centurylink by giving them $91 million is par for the course. The absurd definition of broadband used by government means centurylink got $91 million and all they had to do was keep up with dsl capabilities. You'd hope that much money would get fiber to the home to a few communities, but nah.
    - gruez 5y ago
quaintdev 5y ago
Matrix is the solution.

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

Denvercoder9 5y ago
> This. If calls and international calls were acessible, whatsapp wouldnt exist Whatsapp offers a whole lot more: read receipts, group chats, images and video, voice notes, location sharing, a web client (albeit a quite limited one), and it has a generally pretty good UX/UI (much better than Androids stock messaging app). Regardless of the economics, on a technical level calling/texting isn't competitive with Whatsapp.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  What ever became of RCS? Wasn’t that supposed to support a good number of these features?
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    It requires news infrastructure on the telco side as well as client-side support: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services There seems to be only lukewarm support for it from all parties involved. (Apple isn't even bothering to do much/anything, so that's a huge installed base where nothing is happening.)
  - wyldfire 5y ago
    RCS tries to offer the feature set of WA and iMessage while engaging the mobile operator. WhatsApp and iMessage are "over the top" services that "only" leverage mobile data / TCP etc. RCS was an awful compromise in order to pander to the telcos. Being a simple data service avoids a lot of the problems introduced by cellular infrastructure. We can expect all of the same functionality/robustness/compatibility issues of SMS/MMS.
    - 5y ago

GoodJokes 5y ago

Who do you think lobbies against public services like this? Facebook. Yes we should demand governments regulate Facebook as the bad actor it is.

DantesKite 5y ago

The demand is to not make Facebook responsible for everything. They shouldn't be in charge in what's ostensibly a public utility for most of the planet.

paxys 5y ago

We did focus on making the services accessible and affordable. Then phone providers and ISPs took the goverment funds and went "nah". As late as 2005 I was paying AT&T ~$9/minute to call my family abroad and up to $1 per text. If it weren't for tech companies like Skype/WhatsApp/Facebook/Google I have no doubt that would still be the case today.

forgotpwd16 5y ago
That's my experience as well. Not sure why tweet's author thinks government will necessarily improve rather worsen a service.
gruez 5y ago
>We did focus on making the services accessible and affordable. Then phone providers and ISPs took the goverment funds and went "nah" 1. I hear this narrative a lot. is there more to this? I find it hard to believe that the government gave phone providers/ISPs $$$ no strings attached. 2. giving $$$ to companies to expand their infrastructure make sense to increase accessibility, but doesn't to make it more affordable. they'll charge what the market can bear, and a few hundred million in government funding isn't going to change that, unless there are strings attached (see above). otherwise we'll end up getting better coverage/speeds, but it will still cost roughly the same.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-psc-reaches-settlement-with-centurylink-for-service-violations/article_0c8c0e55-589a-5e31-adf6-5bed75ee3c5e.html https://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-psc-r... The major providers are notorious for not upgrading their infrastructure. The bizarre decision to "punish" centurylink by giving them $91 million is par for the course. The absurd definition of broadband used by government means centurylink got $91 million and all they had to do was keep up with dsl capabilities. You'd hope that much money would get fiber to the home to a few communities, but nah.
  - gruez 5y ago

quaintdev 5y ago

Matrix is the solution.