A lot of people, out of habit, rely on high fructose corn syrup for calories.
If Facebook permanently goes down then those businesses would move to a different platform.
Would it suck? Probably. Would the world be a better place without Facebook? A ton of people think so. Me included.
This is the same argument people have used when we talk about health insurance in the US being scammy. If we ever decided to address it it means a good chunk of people lose their jobs but also means that the health of this country goes up. Which one is more important?
This is not necessarily true. There are social networks and messaging systems implemented as open protocols.
If you're in a country that relies a lot on Facebook or Whatsapp, that's where the main focus will be, but at least try to have alternatives just in case something goes wrong.
It should be fine for huge corporations to exist and provide services really efficiently at scale while also being forced to play nice and respond to the will of the people they serve.
If we collectively can't stop Facebook from doing bad thing and being bad stewards to their own platform then you won't be able to stop whatever would replace them either.
I don't think much of a lesson is going to occur here. It'll be a brief blip that impacts few meaningfully.
I feel bad for everyone who relies on whatsapp bots for making stuff happen, though. These are getting really common out here for a lot of things and it always worries me that it's such a linchpin. They're really handy and save a lot of bullshit phone calls from having to be something people deal with for simple stuff like pharmacy delivery. I can get food from the local place down the street that's only really open for lunch and totally off the map for uber eats, for example... if this persists a few more hours those mom and pop type shops aren't going to have as great a day.
Now, does switching from WhatsApp to some other not-very-widely-used platform cause customer engagement / retention to drop? I would wager very much so! It's a matter of priorities - people go where there is least friction, and WhatsApp otherwise provides a seamless friction-less experience.
What might be a good thing for society in the first world doesn't mean it's necessarily good thing for society in the third world.
Facebook is the most user-hostile tech megacorp, and they will inevitably harm these businesses you care about. The sooner the bandaid is ripped off the better.
You want to dislodge Facebook, you need to disrupt it / curtail its monopoly.
With your username, I think you can risk naming the country without any additional loss of privacy.
I was amazed to discover how pervasive Facebook, Inc. has become in the developing world for conducting business and navigating everyday life.
For a lot of people in developing nations such as the Phillipines and Indonesia, Facebook is synonymous with the internet. This has been buoyed by their push to bundle uncapped/free data for Facebook with mobile plans in markets with high growth of mobile internet access.
It's interesting, because I'm always reading articles about how "Western teens aren't using Facebook any more", which is true, but it's also irrelevant, because they're not really a profitable market, teenagers have short attention spans and no money. Facebook's growth strategy is to become the one stop shop (in lower income nations) for everything you want and need.
They create Instagram accounts and post products as posts, with a caption of "DM me for price".
It also turns on every alarm on my mind, when they start calling these "Instagram pages". It blurs the line between a real website and an Instagram account (In Spanish, "website" is "página web" as well).
I've also heard: "My business went to hell because Instagram killed my account" and that's when I reply: "Have you ever thought of owning a real website?"
Yes how that content is presented, ranked, etc is controlled by Facebook but that contribution is less than the content itself.
It would be better to say it's the spoon in which someone could eat a sugary cereal or something healthy.
I think if its staying down for a few more days Canibalism will ensue by the end of the week.
That's a dick move by the neighborhood.
The problem is initiative and knowledge. They should walk or ride a couple of miles and buy the biggest bags of rice and beans they can, along with a bottle of multivitamins. And then learn how to cook.
If that’s classist, then the classes are structured by knowledge and choices. Which they may well be.
> If that’s classist, then the classes are structured by knowledge and choices. Which they may well be.
class by its definition accounts for massive difference in access to resources. If you think access to resources doesn't measurably change the level of knowledge that a population has, that's a declaration that resources do nothing, which would be an odd stance to take on a knowledge-focused community website.
> They should walk or ride a couple of miles and buy the biggest bags of rice and beans they can, along with a bottle of multivitamins.
I just LOVE the subtle food choice of rice and beans here, paired with the recommendation to take multivitamins, a recommendation that is supported by little to no evidence. Your own lack of knowledge on this topic is in full display, as is a clear demonstration of your own biases across multiple dimensions.
I agree that class accounts for a massive difference in access to resources. However, in this case, the knowledge is available for free, and in the US the basic foodstuffs are available for far less than what disadvantaged people pay for the typical processed and fast food they live on.
Rice and beans - nothing subtle about it. They are basic foods that provide the necessary carbs, fat, and complete protein. The vitamins are a simple way to prevent scurvy and similar deficiencies, until the choice of food can become more varied.
As a person learns to cook and bake, they can add wheat, peas, and corn (But they need to learn about nixtamalization before they add corn.) None of these foods require refrigeration.
I have in mind the cuisine of Mexico, which is inexpensive and nutritious. Similar cuisines are found in home cooking all over the world, at least where commercially processed food hasn't driven them out.
It is most important to make sure that all school children are taught how to process and cook these basic foods.
If you are knowledgeable in this area, I'd appreciate some specific suggestions.
My extended family uses FB to share info about events.
This, and other pedantic activities are really common around the world.
Don't reduce the material reality a situation to a meme that that represents a personalized view.
My family didn't share online before FB.
My mother didn't really have a common means to communicate with her grandchildren in the same way.
Email, phone are just not the same.
There are more channels available now for sure, but none so ubiquitous.
Facetime is not displacing FB for a lot of things, but that's more direct.
'Everyone is on FB' is the reason it still holds in these kinds of uses cases.
None of us case one way or the other about the platform, we'll just use what's convenient, but that is what it is.
This is a very common theme among FB users. FB by the way, is still growing it's userbase, and growing revenues even more so. The themes we see here on HN and even in the news don't represent the views among the population, nor are they necessarily very close to material reality.