Hacker News Reader

Comment by acesubido | Hacker News Reader

This is a very interesting event for the world: on a rough estimate, almost half a billion people are displaced right now. Where are all those man-minutes going to, now that facebook is down and they're not facing that iconic blue header bar on their browser?

The downtime will surely end and it'll be back up again for sure, facebook has very smart people behind it, but this event will have served as a very interesting 'accidental' social experiment. Honestly, I'm not that interested on what happened technically, but I'm interested what effect it had socially for the common man outside the techcrunch/HN/reddit/tech bubble.

On-topic: does facebook have a consolidated status page?

View on HN

What? Displaced? The common man? Reality check, dude.

Nobody is on Facebook constantly. It was down for about 30 minutes, tops. The "common man" just did whatever common men do for all those minutes when they're not on Facebook. Maybe, maybe not, they'll make up the slack later.

Sure, someone was inconvenienced because they relied on being able to find some information or send a message on Facebook and couldn't, but I'll bet far, far more people are inconvenienced on a daily basis in a similar way when their smartphone runs out of battery or is stolen or otherwise lost. Or the network (mobile or fixed line) is down.

I think you underestimate facebook addiction.

I didn't use the word "common man" in an "elitist" context, I used it for avid users, which is a lot of people. Most people inside the tech world underestimate the role of facebook for a person who, all their friends, family and loved ones are using it on a daily basis.

I do agree that a lot of people, if not, everybody will not go crazy or be inconvenienced by a 30-minute downtime, not everyone is on it 24/7. I'm just saying I'm interested on where all those man-minutes went to for avid users.

Probably ringing on their neighbours' door, playing Xbox or having lunch with their family, etc.

We'll probably see a peak in birth rate in 9 months.

Part of it is going to HN, obviously :) (case in point)

Not entirely consolidated, but it's down: https://developers.facebook.com/status/

baby boom in 9 months?

I don't know, maybe ring the neighbours door?

The worlds population is increasing as suddenly people discover relationships in meat space ;-)

Displaced? You probably use it too much. You're very very grossly overestimating the importance of facebook in people's lives.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com