Ask HN: How many lives have been negatively affected by WhatsApp going down?
Many countries outside the US rely on WhatsApp for communication. I imagine even a few hours of non-communication wouldn’t be good for the economy or emergency services.
At the end of the day, Whatsapp is reliable communication infrastructure and it does get used for all sorts of critical things. It's also a backbone for commerce in many parts of the world. Believe it or not, not every country has billions to invest in robust, secure IT infrastructure.
Sure, you could try to contact people some other way (like a regular phone call) but most people don't even bother exchanging phone numbers any more, so you probably wouldn't even have someone's number unless you have their (paper) business card, or if you met them before 2012.
Use QQ, of course! (Except that it probably shares infra with WeChat and would be down as well!)
Kinda ruined the few hours of fun for me.
The phone call might be right before ventilation rather than last words too.
They probably could have paid extra money out of pocket to call normally and get a substandard experience.
They don’t have last words, they either get better or die.
1. on call nurse txts "its time"
2. you confirm that he/she will initiate a call in 20 mins over whatsapp/viber/messenger
3. The nurse holds up the ipad over your loved one's face
4.
Nothing important, but my parents sure lost some sleep.
The time I needed to be available as badly as most of you seem today, I carried at least 2 phones, from 2 different providers from 2 different countries and was instructed how to get where in case of a (comms) blackout.
Glad that's over for me, hope you guys are all well.
I could not communicate with my in-laws via WhatsApp which meant I actually had to speak to them in person.
Ask a leading question; get a flippant answer.
I’d find the cries for empathy to the poor affected users more compelling if it weren’t for the fact that anyone of working age can remember a time when these technologies didn’t exist. If it’s a tragedy that you didn’t have access to a novel technology for six hours, then I’d question the health of your relationship to it, and the wisdom of any economic choices you’ve made which depend upon it.
Do you have any experience living in a country outside a "first world" country? Do you have any understanding how these "novel" technologies can be the backbone of people's business, livelihoods or even emergency services?
Sounds like you are in a comfortable bubble.
Tell you what: I’ll be more empathetic to victims of the great Facebook outage of 2021 if you can be more empathetic to the mother I lost to covid after refusing to get vaccinated on account of memes she saw on Facebook. Deal?
I also find your argument specious, because you can continue that train of logic with any modern technology.
I don't think communication is comparable to food and water, but I wouldn't say it's a negligible impact on a person, especially since we don't know the circumstances of what happened during those six hours and how many services rely on it outside of Western nations. And by the looks of it, a few million people rely on it.
Facebook going down is a minor inconvenience. Facebook Chat and WhatsApp going down are a bit more serious.
I invite you to see life through other people’s eyes every once in a while. I promise it’ll be worth it.
People really should have other means and platforms to use and gravitate toward them. There is no good reason to prefer fb for anything.