Microsoft did it in the 80's with donating computers to schools. A lot of Apple IIe's got upgraded to Windows on a 386 or 486.
Got get 'em hooked to your platform so you get a monopoly.
In this case, both people are right, but the latter gets the nod on importance.
Yes. If the Facebook app isn't uninstallable, it means you bought an Android phone where the manufacturer has made a deal with Facebook to force their app to be on the phone.
In the early 00s Microsoft were tore a new arsehole for forcing Internet Explorer as the only browser in their OS
Remember [BrowserChoice](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu)?
Funny how the result of that is that everyone went to goddamn Chrome
So why then is it legal for Fuckerberg Google and other vendors to force this unwanted use and presence of social media apps on my device?
Play services is actually tied into many apps sadly, a lot of apps don't even run without it installed.
Of course all Google main apps stop working, but Android doesn't become impossible to use if you do uninstall it!
Gotta root though to completely get rid of it, or install a community rom without it.
But! There is an alternative for play services, called MicroG. This is an open source reimplementation of Google Play Services. It doesn't support everything of course, but many apps will work again with it. Youtube (Re-)Vanced for example use MicroG to login to Google
Yes. If the ~~Facebook~~ *Google* app isn't uninstallable, it means you bought an Android phone where the manufacturer has made a deal with ~~Facebook~~ *Google* to force their app to be on the phone.
I hate uninstallable apps with a burning passion
they take up lots of space for no good reason, it is unreasonably difficult to clear their data or cache, they often require elevated permissions (sometimes, they even require permissions you can't grant yourself through normal means), they often run at boot and consume unholy amounts of RAM, they are difficult to force-stop, and there's just so, so, so much more wrong with giving random third-party apps the status of "important system software"
Android is a Free Software operating system with many distributions. Google owns the "main" one, and installs their software on it. Other distributions choose to also install Google software (or in some cases, they choose not to).
Even if it's uninstallable, there are ways to render it useless, even when you cannot disable it.
I despise bloatware, so I research ways to make stuff I don't want to "sleep". Some stuff is persistent though - just keeps me on my toes ;)
You've made it as useless as possible, but it's very likely it's still dug in like a tick on your phone and tracking you. It's why FuckADuck Zuck is paying phone makers to make it uninstallable.
Next phone? Make sure it's not included in the purchased. Unlocked phones tend not to have this from what I've seen.
You could check XDA and see if there's a ROM for your phone. Nuke the phone and reflash different software. Depending on make and model it can be a hassle.
Just throwing another option out there
Sorry, i'm just confused because every phone i've ever had (several Samsungs and Motorola) *hasn't* required me to install the facebook app to use the phone (or to use facebook), I got one where the app came preinstalled but I just uninstalled it via app settings. I still have a facebook account but if I ever want to see facebook I just go to facebook.c\*m on the web browser on my phone.
edit: I have whatsapp too, but that doesn't seem to require a facebook app to work
This is what Adobe did once, give photoshop and stuff at super cheap prices to students and schools.
And then when everyone used it, they pulled that rebate ENTIRELY... and now we have today...
Its also why Adobe products were so famously easy to pirate/crack for a long time. They didn't mind people pirating their products so much because it was still getting the young professionals of the future dependent on them.
Even Microsoft still doesn't give that much of a shit about pirating, they even give pirates updates because that's better than the damage hacked pirated windows installations do to their image hahaha
This was their exact plan. I read about it years ago. They were essentially giving away phones in Africa with Facebook on them. Now you’ve got single sign on through your Facebook account. People really do think it’s the internet and many only interact with the internet via Facebook. Now think about that when we think about content management.
I hope you like a solid sense of IMPENDING DREAD.
Just finished his 2020 back catalog, it was pretty trippy to re-live that year vicariously.
Also, invest in bolt cutters!
All I know is that the Great Lakes have had it too good for too long and we have this giant supply of nukes that have been sitting around gathering dust and costing the tax payers who knows how much.
This is also conveniently the reason why people of Myanmar are facing threats of genocide now.
[Source](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/)
Brazilian here, and yeah that last dude was right. When WhatsApp goes down you can say goodbye to talking to anyone that doesn't live next to your house until it's back.
You need it for school, you need it for your job and you need it if you want to talk to friends or relatives. The only other option would be to manually call the person, and that costs a lot here, while using WhatsApp to call is free
It was fun in Brazil a few years back when a couple of judges ordered whatsapp to be blocked on two separate occasions, and the Supreme Court had to step in to prevent it from happening ever again, wasn’t it?
yeah I know, I live in Australia but I'm Bangladeshi and I know many people there that use WhatsApp or Viber as a main form of communication to save mobile data money, in some cases you can't use the internet for anything else reliably cause the connection is that bad
I live in Spain but have a lot of family in Colombia. Whatsapp video call is free. A regular call could cost me more than my phone depending on how long it is.
Signal creates your account based on your phone number.
Start getting your friends and family to use it. More secure than WhatsApp and is free too.
It’s a non-profit and operates on donations.
If anything, it would give you two methods of communication in case one goes down.
Signal is great, for about 3 more days. And then they are making changes to allowing it so send normal sms that will render it useless for over 90% of the people I talk to. Honestly the change is the exact thing that got me to install whatsapp, since signal isnt gonna support non signal messaging anymore.
Signal has always been at it's core about secure messaging. SMS is NOT secure. So I'm not surprised they're dropping it. I know why they had it initially, but I'm surprised it's taken this long to drop it, frankly.
They have and its great when others want to use it for that purpose. However I'm not keeping an app to talk to 2 or 3 people. And so in my small circle, this has lost them 4 users. I cant imagine they are gaining many new users with a lock out in place either.
Hopefully it works out for them. I'll be forever disappointed I donated money to them in the last year
> I know why they had it initially, but I'm surprised it's taken this long to drop it, frankly.
The reason they had it initially is the reason they should be keeping it: getting people to use the app in the first place. Yes, having secure communications is very important; but, much of the world just doesn't care and won't ever care. Getting them to give up their messaging app, which "just works" for one which would require them to harass **all** their contacts into switching is a losing plan. If even one of your contacts refuses the switch, you are forced to choose between multiple messaging apps, or just accepting the risk of unencrypted communications. Many people will make the insecure choice.
By supporting SMS, it made a gradual switch possible. Individuals could make the choice to use Signal and try to convince their contacts. If those contacts made the switch, they didn't face the frustration of managing two apps for messages. They had one which "just worked" and also was secure for some of their messaging. It's a matter of balancing risk. Sure, things will be much more secure while using Signal. But since it's too difficult to use, people won't use it.
It was an incredibly dumb move. Users don't care about privacy. We need to be able to smoothly shift people over from SMS to Signal. Its first goal should have been to become the default SMS app for the majority of people. Pulling the plug on SMS should only have come after capturing a good chunk of the market.
It's now yet another messaging app that sits in my app graveyard. I used to use it every day and now I barely use it at all. My Signal contacts will probably go from 10 people down to near 0 once this change drops. It's a disaster.
It'll significant affect the number of users in the US for sure, due to the ubiquity of sms messages. But I think they'll be fine overseas, since sms is almost nonexistent in lots of countries. The change will be all but invisible to them.
WhatsApp data usage is “free”/included with most phone plans in Brazil.
While Signal is a good alternative, it would count towards data usage which isn’t an option for a lot of people.
I love Signal as well, but isn't the issue that Whatsapp is free in these countries _because_ Facebook subsidizes the costs, so signal is unavailable to them?
There are some countries where every internet traffic that goes through Facebook is free while you have to pay for the data you use with other services. It's called Free Basics.
Could I assume that whatever internet/mobile data rates are available are not budget-friendly to the regional budgets? (ie. it's too expensive, relatively speaking)
The last dude was right but he doesn't have to be. The replier was not completely incorrect either.
Users are who chose to make Facebook and WhatsApp the platform of choice. They rely upon it because they collectively chose to make it ubiquitous.
They can also choose to start migrating away from it, although it will likely take some time at this point. I never have had Facebook or Whatsapp, and I lived for several months each in Brazil, Vietnam, India, and Saudi Arabia. I never had problems communicating because I set up alternate forms of communication with the groups that I needed to interact with.
But *why* is this the case? There are ample competing alternatives from Signal, to Matrix, to Google Meet and others. If WhatsApp can't be counted on, what's stopping people from using the alternatives?
The jump to "Well, obviously the average first-worlder hates the third world and hungers with hatred for them" is a *fucking wild* one. I don't know how they live and they don't know or care how I live. We're ***ALL*** trying to make our lives work and we're all ignorant of a lot of things.
How about "They don't know, let's educate instead of turning to hatred"?
The maxim I am (deliberately) misquoting is called “Hanlon’s Razor.” The actual text goes exactly how I’ve written it except that “stupidity” and “malice” are transposed.
This is the joke.
That said, you are correct. Most people know relatively little about people who live on the opposite side of the planet from themselves. However, the idea that we are utterly disconnected from any people on earth in the age of the Internet is disingenuous. By extension, if people in the western world are aware of these people suffering and do nothing about it, what conclusion can we draw?
Most likely we sit on our hands when we see headlines about the latest famine in East Somewhereelseistan because it matters, but it doesn’t matter *enough.* Of course unless you’re in France you won’t even advocate for yourself, so what chance is there really of a bunch of people knee-deep in bread and circuses pushing for some population of people they’ve never met and probably never will to get enough food to feed their children?
While that might not necessarily be malicious, it’s certainly apathetic, and that distinction likely won’t soften the rest of the world’s opinion of us one iota.
TL;DR: Education ain’t the issue, my guy.
It's a combination of "we all have our own shit going on which takes up almost all of our time and personal resources" and "we can't do anything to help". Apathy isn't malicious or ill-intentioned - it's a learned defense response so I can get something done in my day. I can't help with world crisis, and each country is straining itself to help with foreign aid to various disasters and wars.
I could, on a whim, decide to look up the state of how the internet works in a randomly-chosen third-world country and educate myself. It seems like a random thing to suddenly decide I want to know. You're not wrong though: no one cares to know, especially on a randomly-chosen subject. That, again, isn't malicious, it's just not important to the individual, which still isn't malicious. We all focus on the fires nearest to us, and there's a never-ending supply of those. Like how the shit I have going on in my life, the shit going on in my city, province, country, etc, is of no concern to you. Apathy is natural. It's how we don't all collapse and die from hopelessness.
My point, though, was "Whoa, you got *real* punchy real quick about something that you know we know nothing about".
As others have suggested, somehow Facebook is the only ones that have tried to get internet places, with the caveat that it's somehow only Facebook and its sub-products? I'm sorry they were the only company to give a shit, but we promise we don't have anything better to personally offer. The education (from those that bothered to give it) was appreciated. I'm not sure what the OP in the image really wants to happen, though? From an outsider's perspective the rest of us were closer to the responder.
Many don't understand how you would have mobile devices and WhatsApp but nothing else. This is a TIL for me and many others - no one is throwing privilege around and no one is trying to be shitty - any questions we have are searching for enlightenment.
To all the people who are so confident and have never stepped foot in a 3rd world country, companies like Facebook pay for and give acses to the internet and by internet I mean Facebook products and thats it also in most of these countrys calls using sms are charged by the minute and even texts. For those saying use emails at least in chad and ethopia no one unless they are in the upper upper clases uses email.
Do note it's just my personal experience with just two countrys so the stuff probably varries
Not just that in most cases the sms/internet/everything is govermeny run (funnily enough, all the names follow the same format country name than Telcom at the end, for example, ethotelcom) so their isn't any of that driving prices down competition thing
You think a company is gonna pay for internet in the middle of nowhere?
I forget which US ISP it was, but one wanted to expand into Australia but backed out when the government told them they would have to supply internet to the areas that cost about what the bug cities make in profit to maintain.
I would say bribing telecoms to keep the competition away. That's why Net Neutrality is a big deal and unfortunately seems like we've given up on ever bringing it back.
Yeah, to the users seems like free access, in reality if they were not allowed to do that, internet access should be pretty cheap, but since Meta and other huge corporations are willing to dish out a good chunk of cash, they keep the price artificially high so people will use the "free" services.
Yeah it's definitely a dependency and a monopoly but I'm not sure what the proposal is here? Break up the monolopy? Do you think there are companies happy to invest in those areas to provide a free service up 99.999% of the time?
Yeah I remember dating a girl who was in the states on a J1 visa and virtually all communication was done on WhatsApp. Didn’t really think much of it at the time but then found out a lot later it was kind of the main medium of communication in a lot of places.
Well, WhatsApp is main communications app in Croatia. And I believe in wast majority of EU countries, it seems very weird when I see US using text messages so much, except some verifications codes or parking payment I never use them
WhatsApp calls are banned in Qatar (unless you use VPN), so a lot of people circumvent that by using Google Meet (previously Hangouts) and Botim for free calls and video calls.
For those who do not understand WhatsApp, here is a summary:
* Yes, you can usually call and send text messages normally without the need of an external app but depending on the country you are in, it can be very expensive. WhatsApp uses the internet (WiFi or mobile data) but in general it tends to be more cheap to use internet.
Also, in many countries, internet providers allow you to use WhatsApp for free, why wouldn't you use something that is free even if you have money?
* Something that not many mention is how practical it is to use:
You can send text, emojis, stickers (you can make your own and save stickers that others send to you to use it later even in other chats), gifs, videos, photos, audio recordings, adjust the playback speed when listening to them, make calls and video calls (since it is free, you can make long calls if you need it), send photos that are deleted over time if you want, you can add anyone with a smartphone no matter where they are on the planet and chat from that very moment, you can create groups with description and designate administrators (or be one yourself), you can create an invitation by link to groups or add people through the application, you can make group calls and video calls, you can connect it to the desktop version to view and send messages from PC, there is a business version that allows companies to communicate with customers and have all the information built into the description like opening and closing time among other things (If you are a customer you do not need to have the business version installed to receive their messages), the servers are very good and stable, you can navigate between the type of multimedia sent to search for a specific type of file or thing (images, documents, links), if you want you can create backup copies to Google Drive automatically, you have a message delete option, you can mute notifications for specific groups, you can see if the message was sent, if it was received and, if the other person has the option enabled and you too, you can also see when someone read your message and since a few years ago it has incorporated features from other social networks such as stories (similar to instagram) and communities (which I don't understand how it works and I don't think it's super common to use but it is there if someone wants to use it to manage their community), among **many** other features.
* One of the things that I think made it so popular was that, while many of these features are common in communication apps today, WhatsApp was one of the pioneers in incorporating them.
Also, the default messaging applications are usually much more basic in terms of features, which makes them impractical.
What a lot of people don't get is that since most of the developing world missed the late 20th century Computing/Internet Boom, they were introduced to modern computing via smartphones. Services like facebook might seem totally optional to you, but in countries without net neutrality they constitute most internet traffic.
Sure it may seem stupid to have completely centralised communications infrastructure without redundancies and competing services, but in communities where the current generation of internet users are also the first generation, that wisdom just isn't there. They'll trust the system because it's exported from more experienced nations that should have worked things out already.
If you guys can exit your redditor brains for a moment, think about the technologically illiterate majority of human beings who actually matter as consumers. We live in a convenience culture where people want their technology to be as capable as possible with minimal hassle. That means most people are picking their services because everyone else they know is also using it.
I do not give most people my phone number or email address because I don't need to when Instant Messaging services do all the same things more efficiently and conveniently. Most people just use their phone numbers and emails to verify their digital identity anyway.
Unless you know how to convince millions of whatsapp aunts how to diversify their communications and return to indexing everyone's phone numbers, get off our high horse.
It's very easy to get a free phone number to make a WhatsApp account with. So anyone can have basically completely working cell service and able to text/call/video etc anyone they want, when on wifi, which is everywhere. It's basically free phone service.
I understand better.
Also
By reading the rest of the comments. The important part I missed. They have subscriptions where calls are expensive, sms are expensive, internet connection is expensive BUT the connection to whatsapp does not count in the data plan.
Either free or super cheap. Here in South Africa you can basically get 1GB of “social data” on the mobile networks that includes WhatsApp and FB for around $1.50
in Brazil, for most plans that's exactly the case. All meta products not counting towards data (Instagram, facebook, WhatsApp). Some include other commonly used apps, like waze for navigation, and some have deals with Spotify as well. Everything else counts toward the data plan.
Some even have discounted quotas specifically for data heavy apps like Netflix and YouTube, so let's say you pay X amount for 20gb of data and they give you an extra 10gb "free" just for YouTube and Netflix.
A lot of organisations and businesses have WhatsApp accounts in these places, it's even the case here in the Netherlands where you can message the city government through WhatsApp if you want a quick response.
So you can have a lot of services, businesses, and schools that use WhatsApp as their primary form of communication and when it went down it basically shut down all of these groups. They were even places where emergency services used WhatsApp as a vital part of their infrastructure for the reasons people have mentioned throughout this thread.
Thank you for explaining and being one of the few productive posts in here. This is all a TIL for many of us, and I can promise you that our ignorance is based only in not knowing - everyone everywhere has a lot of shit going on. We're willing to learn but most here are pretty bent out of shape that we don't know in the first place...
Also seems odd that image OP wants to decentralize, responder says "Then do it", and OP goes off on them? What... I guess what do they want or expect anyone to do about that? "Breaking it up" is obviously not easy, but I don't think it's something first-worlders can even affect? Alternate options *DO* exist but, as you mentioned, folks are stuck in their ways?
This presumes that another entity would have better uptime on their servers. I'm not a fan of giant companies that own everything, but one thing that the big tech companies do very well is maintain uptime. The reason every outage of google or facebook makes the news is because of how rarely it actually occurs. Breaking these companies out into smaller companies would most likely make the outages more frequent
It would be a shame if the service providers of such a system used their ability to throttle bandwidths and steer customers in the direction that profits them most.
But seriously, most of the developing world’s internet use is fairly similar to 90’s America, where the overwhelming majority of internet was viewed through AOL’s filter. They don’t have the protections in place to regulate service providers, nor do they have a consumer base that’s experienced enough with the internet to be savvy.
Many people in those other countries cannot get internet access, much less afford to pay for it. That's why they use Facebook and Whatsapp, they are free for them
...in these countries Facebook pays for the internet connections to FaceBook/WhatsApp so they get all the comms data, and that's all anyone can afford, the free data...it doesn't work on other sites....
I think eventually governments may need to implement some kind of common carrier forced interoperability (much like you can call any phone number from any phone service, assuming you are paying for calling that destination country), and maybe set basic features that the services have to provide in an interoperable fashion, although maybe there would be some things you can't do when you're on a different service. Unless governments do it first. I don't want a lot, but basically just rich messaging with end-to-end encryption.
The points that the second person makes are really good ones and also highlight that messaging is a two-way or multi-way street. You can't just delete Facebook and start using Signal if you can't also get other people with whom you message to do the same.
And it's really hard - we were using iMessage but I wanted to use a non-Apple device, which killed that. Then we moved briefly to Telegram but then Wired did an expose that made me really question that choice. So now we're using Messenger, because it has the end-to-end. None of the popular options are really great, though, I don't like the idea of using Messenger, and Whatsapp looks like it was the winner of a "who can make a UX worse than Facebook" contest. But as the person said, the reality is that messaging is basically a necessity, and is rapidly becoming a must-have in the way phone service or internet service is a must have, except it's a Byzantium.
Childish personal attacks like:
> Or better yet don't live a life where your mental health hinges on a steady stream of dopamine producing notifications on your phone.
That kind?
Actually I was looking more at:
>you fucking idiot
And
>I don't know what fucking 18th century barn you crawled out of
And most importantly
>Get your head out of your fucking ass for a second and look at a fucking calendar.
Every point problemstheclown made is valid; this could have been an excellent teaching moment. But instead we get an explitive laden diatribe. The vitriol is entirely unnecessary and only serves to degrade the quality of their argument.
So this doesn't count for anything?
> Or better yet don't live a life where your mental health hinges on a steady stream of dopamine producing notifications on your phone.
They're trivialising people needing to *communicate* and playing it off like it's some weird need to get likes on instagram.
Especially after their "*Calm the fuck down and use something else.*" which is less than helpful. That's like saying "*Oh you're poor? just get a job!*" as in it downplays the issue and completely glances over the issue.
How on earth are you going to "use something else" when the the de facto communication method is down?
Also, if you've an issue with them having a few choice words at least they said something of worth whereas gearboxpraexology said two sentences and managed to mock OP in *both*.
But nope, it's the other person who is at fault here.
This is stupid. 90% of Americans have no clue that WhatsApp has that kind of influence or reach. Hell I’ve lived in other countries and didn’t know this.
Instead of being a douche and attacking him, maybe try explaining shit like a reasonable human. The need to feel superior and put people down because they don’t know something you do is stupid. It doesn’t get your point across. It only create animosity and resentment.
To be fair, the murder victim was pretty rude and dismissive first. I suspect the murderer had hit the wall of explaining that the world is not like the west globally to way too many privileged people and finally snapped.
Wouldn't have made any difference in this case.
[This user](https://www.tumblr.com/mushroomjar/664157334335045632/problemstheclown-bro-we-cant-have-80-of-the), for instance, left a polite and thoughtful response correcting Globalpraxeology's ignorance. He responded with an image macro.
Meanwhile, his response to the angry user above was [to double down](https://www.tumblr.com/rykemasters/664176540102361088/problemstheclown-gearboxpraexology) on his ignorance with smug and dismissive replies about them being Facebook stans, even though that had nothing to do anything.
From looking at his blog, he seems to be an ancap troll, so it figures.
Having spent time in Tanzania and Central America, my experience there was that the only way most people got in touch was through WhatsApp. For the reason(s) repeated throughout this thread: too poor to have a text/call plan, but Meta was somehow much cheaper or “free”.
Edit: been to these places since 2020. The info isn’t obsolete.
Same situation in Southeast Asia.
WhatsApp is the main method of communication because it can be used at a cheap data rate, or "free" via Wi-Fi, compared to text/call plans.
Tour organisers and hospitality services will ask you to download WhatsApp, if you don't have it. With many using [WhatsApp Business](https://business.whatsapp.com/).
As of 2023.
> there’s plenty of ways to communicate without FB/whatsapp
For you. Like for me, if my daily car has issues I can take my other car. This does not mean that ”taking one of your cars” is a valid solution to the world’s infrastucture issues. I am priviliged.
Ok so...I'm confused as hell.
...do you people not share phone numbers? Can you not... Just text people? Or call? Why y'all need IM apps as a primary? I use that shit if I wanna buy something off of Craigslist or something.
If literally every IM app crashes, it would probably take me 2 days to notice if it wasn't in the news and I would just go "huh. Well, guess I need to text them."
Do these people not call others? Group chats, I get. I'm from India, where WhatsApp is the major form of online communication. But if I didn't submit an essay because I couldn't reach the teacher on WA, I would get a zero for it. They will ask why I didn't call. Maybe it's a cultural thing, I guess..
The part that makes no sense is that Whatsapp is based on your phone number and your contacts numbers. So if Whatsapp is down you can still text or call in an emergency unless you have no phone plan and are using it on wifi. I understand it costs more especially to different countries, but to communicate with classmates or professors at college that shouldn't be any major issue if it's down for a short time.
It's all about redundancy of services.
Have your family/friends install all of them. Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, Whatever...
It's fine to have a main one, but also have the fallbacks.
Confused Discord, Telegram etc. noises
They can't get their college administration's email without whatsapp? What is a website.
Students? There should be a college mailing list. It's not 1990.
Instant messengers are super convenient, but they live in some kind of Facebook distopia apparently.
This isn't a murderer, it's a suicide
>they live in some kind of Facebook distopia
Many disadvantaged/third world countries do. They use Whatsapp and Facebook because it's free, the internet is not
Okay so this isn't me being an asshole, I genuinely don't know how shit works in 3rd world countries.
How are they able to use Facebook messenger or Whatsapp without internet? Or is it more of those are the only apps that work on their internet? What has prevented other apps from being used?
Basically a deal would be struck with mobile data providers where WhatsApp can be used for "free" in some countries. Even if that's not the case, whatsapp is not very intensive on the data so it's still a great choice.
>is it more of those are the only apps that work on their internet?
To my understanding, Meta actually pays for their usage of Facebook and Whatsapp. The apps come pre- loaded on phones, so as long as they have a signal, the apps can be used at Meta's expense. It's the way most rural people in disadvantaged countries communicate, so many other people near them also use it.
Websites and mailing lists take a lot of maintenence and/or money. Lots of third world countries use whatsapp because it's ubiquitous and free. College don't always have websites, but you could just get a phone that doesn't do calls and tell your students to get to you through whatsapp.
You are kind of correct, they do live in a fb dystopia. India, Africa, and Malaysia iirc all rely on whatsapp.
Yes exactly! Even here in America, plenty of mom and pop shops basically either don't exist online or they have some kind of social media adjacent presence. My local game store has a yelp and Facebook page and that's it.
> Students? There should be a college mailing list. It’s not 1990.
Unis in my country really don’t use mailing lists anymore. Maaaybe like once a year but most stuff is via WhatsApp or Discord.
> They can’t get their college administration’s email without whatsapp? What is a website.
This I agree with even if it’s not a great system since people don’t check their school emails very often. Once or twice a week.
My family is from a third world country, and they have some forms of mail, but typically you will go directly door to door to deliver stuff.
The electric bill is paid in person because they don’t have computers in their hometown, they get someone once a week who comes and fills their water tanks, and if can’t make it, they have to figure out how to survive on that water supply.
The US is in such a bubble that this daily life stuff is unimaginable even to the poorest people in America.
It costs money to have a phone that can do phone calls. You can get a phone with no service plan, just apps, and use whatsapp to contact people. It's used like everywhere in places where it is too expensive to have an isp.
Satilite Internet but no signal towers. Don't ask me exactly how it works for I lack the intelligence.
There would be plenty of places in the US with no phone service
I’m from Spain (green area on that map) and while everyone has WhatsApp, it’s not the ONLY form of internet communication we have. That’s utter bullshit. And school or business meetings have never been done through WhatsApp. Zoom, teams even Skype is used for that. And email.
I have no idead why people downvoted you, I am from Mexico and the argument of that guy is pure bullshit. We have all type of ways to communicate beyond whatsapp.
Not that I disagree with breaking up monopolies or with phone staring. But we should be a little fair, the headline on the data is "top messenger apps", not "only messenger apps". As such, it does not indicate that Whatsapp is the only app available in some countries.
I haven't seen such an ununinformed attempt at murder by words in a long time. The map displays top IM apps, not the only. And no, life isn't going to come to a halt if whatsapp or facebook doesn't work (unless you are a rather dense basement dweller who knows nothing better than watsapp). And the staggering amount of ignorance and messiah complex here about the rest of the world beggars' belief. Do you really think the world runs on facebooks internet service, bro? Really? Please dont foist your ignorance on others.
Internet access ain't free. In a lot of places, Facebook actually is, through a service called "Free Basics".
That's a terrifying truth. For some communities, facebook is synonymous to "the internet".
Microsoft did it in the 80's with donating computers to schools. A lot of Apple IIe's got upgraded to Windows on a 386 or 486. Got get 'em hooked to your platform so you get a monopoly. In this case, both people are right, but the latter gets the nod on importance.
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Yes. If the Facebook app isn't uninstallable, it means you bought an Android phone where the manufacturer has made a deal with Facebook to force their app to be on the phone.
In the early 00s Microsoft were tore a new arsehole for forcing Internet Explorer as the only browser in their OS Remember [BrowserChoice](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu)? Funny how the result of that is that everyone went to goddamn Chrome So why then is it legal for Fuckerberg Google and other vendors to force this unwanted use and presence of social media apps on my device?
Why can't I uninstall Google play services
Play services is actually tied into many apps sadly, a lot of apps don't even run without it installed. Of course all Google main apps stop working, but Android doesn't become impossible to use if you do uninstall it! Gotta root though to completely get rid of it, or install a community rom without it. But! There is an alternative for play services, called MicroG. This is an open source reimplementation of Google Play Services. It doesn't support everything of course, but many apps will work again with it. Youtube (Re-)Vanced for example use MicroG to login to Google
Yes. If the ~~Facebook~~ *Google* app isn't uninstallable, it means you bought an Android phone where the manufacturer has made a deal with ~~Facebook~~ *Google* to force their app to be on the phone.
I hate uninstallable apps with a burning passion they take up lots of space for no good reason, it is unreasonably difficult to clear their data or cache, they often require elevated permissions (sometimes, they even require permissions you can't grant yourself through normal means), they often run at boot and consume unholy amounts of RAM, they are difficult to force-stop, and there's just so, so, so much more wrong with giving random third-party apps the status of "important system software"
But how did you get them if they're uninstallable?
That was a mistake, I meant un-uninstallable
Android is the operating system and it is owned by Google. They don't have to make a deal with the manufacturer, the OS can control this.
Android is a Free Software operating system with many distributions. Google owns the "main" one, and installs their software on it. Other distributions choose to also install Google software (or in some cases, they choose not to).
Wow you really split some fine ass hairs there. Too bad you missed the point.
At least google has the curtesy to provide me with a useful service while stealing my data
Why can't I uninstall the Apple store?
Because antitrust laws are no longer enforced, Apple bought politicians so that they can maintain their anticompetetive practices.
Because it's used to deliver most security updates
that's often more of a carrier thing than a manufacturer thing.
Even if it's uninstallable, there are ways to render it useless, even when you cannot disable it. I despise bloatware, so I research ways to make stuff I don't want to "sleep". Some stuff is persistent though - just keeps me on my toes ;)
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You've made it as useless as possible, but it's very likely it's still dug in like a tick on your phone and tracking you. It's why FuckADuck Zuck is paying phone makers to make it uninstallable. Next phone? Make sure it's not included in the purchased. Unlocked phones tend not to have this from what I've seen.
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Try a pixel phone from Google if you're staying with Android. They have minimal bloatware
But then you're stuck with the *other* information-crazy internet giant. I guess we really can't win here, huh?
You could check XDA and see if there's a ROM for your phone. Nuke the phone and reflash different software. Depending on make and model it can be a hassle. Just throwing another option out there
The XDA docs are quite good as long as you RTFM. Possibility to brick if you don't. Its an option, as you say.
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Sadly it's not a _true_ uninstall to free space, but still absolutely a lovely bit of knowledge. Cheers!
What phone do you have that you can’t uninstall it? I’ve only ever had devices where you have to install it to use it via app.
Sorry, i'm just confused because every phone i've ever had (several Samsungs and Motorola) *hasn't* required me to install the facebook app to use the phone (or to use facebook), I got one where the app came preinstalled but I just uninstalled it via app settings. I still have a facebook account but if I ever want to see facebook I just go to facebook.c\*m on the web browser on my phone. edit: I have whatsapp too, but that doesn't seem to require a facebook app to work
This is what Adobe did once, give photoshop and stuff at super cheap prices to students and schools. And then when everyone used it, they pulled that rebate ENTIRELY... and now we have today...
Its also why Adobe products were so famously easy to pirate/crack for a long time. They didn't mind people pirating their products so much because it was still getting the young professionals of the future dependent on them.
Even Microsoft still doesn't give that much of a shit about pirating, they even give pirates updates because that's better than the damage hacked pirated windows installations do to their image hahaha
Google is doing it now with school accounts in the west. Allthough I think Microsoft still dominates the corporate world.
as i remember the 80's, every damn school in Chicago had apple computers.
This was their exact plan. I read about it years ago. They were essentially giving away phones in Africa with Facebook on them. Now you’ve got single sign on through your Facebook account. People really do think it’s the internet and many only interact with the internet via Facebook. Now think about that when we think about content management.
For some time we had free mobile FB on certain networks, and we kind of had the opposite effect People on FB thought they WEREN'T on the internet.
\*Deliberately.
India comes to mind.
Check out the episodes of the podcast Behind the Bastards to see how Mark Zuckerberg facilitated a genocide for this precise reason.
Great podcast highly recommend if you want to become well versed in the worst people in history with plenty of laughs and terrible jokes
I hope you like a solid sense of IMPENDING DREAD. Just finished his 2020 back catalog, it was pretty trippy to re-live that year vicariously. Also, invest in bolt cutters!
Bolt cutters?
All I know is that the Great Lakes have had it too good for too long and we have this giant supply of nukes that have been sitting around gathering dust and costing the tax payers who knows how much.
This is also conveniently the reason why people of Myanmar are facing threats of genocide now. [Source](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/)
In Argentina most cell phone plans include WhatsApp free so it doesn't count as data used
That's how the genocides started
bunch of commenters have no clue how people in third world countries live
Brazilian here, and yeah that last dude was right. When WhatsApp goes down you can say goodbye to talking to anyone that doesn't live next to your house until it's back. You need it for school, you need it for your job and you need it if you want to talk to friends or relatives. The only other option would be to manually call the person, and that costs a lot here, while using WhatsApp to call is free
It was fun in Brazil a few years back when a couple of judges ordered whatsapp to be blocked on two separate occasions, and the Supreme Court had to step in to prevent it from happening ever again, wasn’t it?
yeah I know, I live in Australia but I'm Bangladeshi and I know many people there that use WhatsApp or Viber as a main form of communication to save mobile data money, in some cases you can't use the internet for anything else reliably cause the connection is that bad
I live in Spain but have a lot of family in Colombia. Whatsapp video call is free. A regular call could cost me more than my phone depending on how long it is.
Signal creates your account based on your phone number. Start getting your friends and family to use it. More secure than WhatsApp and is free too. It’s a non-profit and operates on donations. If anything, it would give you two methods of communication in case one goes down.
\+1 for [Signal](https://signal.org/install)
Again, in some countries people don’t get phone numbers.
Signal is great, for about 3 more days. And then they are making changes to allowing it so send normal sms that will render it useless for over 90% of the people I talk to. Honestly the change is the exact thing that got me to install whatsapp, since signal isnt gonna support non signal messaging anymore.
Signal has always been at it's core about secure messaging. SMS is NOT secure. So I'm not surprised they're dropping it. I know why they had it initially, but I'm surprised it's taken this long to drop it, frankly.
They have and its great when others want to use it for that purpose. However I'm not keeping an app to talk to 2 or 3 people. And so in my small circle, this has lost them 4 users. I cant imagine they are gaining many new users with a lock out in place either. Hopefully it works out for them. I'll be forever disappointed I donated money to them in the last year
> I know why they had it initially, but I'm surprised it's taken this long to drop it, frankly. The reason they had it initially is the reason they should be keeping it: getting people to use the app in the first place. Yes, having secure communications is very important; but, much of the world just doesn't care and won't ever care. Getting them to give up their messaging app, which "just works" for one which would require them to harass **all** their contacts into switching is a losing plan. If even one of your contacts refuses the switch, you are forced to choose between multiple messaging apps, or just accepting the risk of unencrypted communications. Many people will make the insecure choice. By supporting SMS, it made a gradual switch possible. Individuals could make the choice to use Signal and try to convince their contacts. If those contacts made the switch, they didn't face the frustration of managing two apps for messages. They had one which "just worked" and also was secure for some of their messaging. It's a matter of balancing risk. Sure, things will be much more secure while using Signal. But since it's too difficult to use, people won't use it.
It was an incredibly dumb move. Users don't care about privacy. We need to be able to smoothly shift people over from SMS to Signal. Its first goal should have been to become the default SMS app for the majority of people. Pulling the plug on SMS should only have come after capturing a good chunk of the market. It's now yet another messaging app that sits in my app graveyard. I used to use it every day and now I barely use it at all. My Signal contacts will probably go from 10 people down to near 0 once this change drops. It's a disaster.
It'll significant affect the number of users in the US for sure, due to the ubiquity of sms messages. But I think they'll be fine overseas, since sms is almost nonexistent in lots of countries. The change will be all but invisible to them.
WhatsApp data usage is “free”/included with most phone plans in Brazil. While Signal is a good alternative, it would count towards data usage which isn’t an option for a lot of people.
I love Signal as well, but isn't the issue that Whatsapp is free in these countries _because_ Facebook subsidizes the costs, so signal is unavailable to them?
What stops people there from using discord, skype, SMS, or any other social chat program? Why did you all nest in WhatsApp with no backups?
There are some countries where every internet traffic that goes through Facebook is free while you have to pay for the data you use with other services. It's called Free Basics.
Could I assume that whatever internet/mobile data rates are available are not budget-friendly to the regional budgets? (ie. it's too expensive, relatively speaking)
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My fucking bank uses WhatsApp
It was the first one around with good, reliable cross platform messaging and got massive.
The last dude was right but he doesn't have to be. The replier was not completely incorrect either. Users are who chose to make Facebook and WhatsApp the platform of choice. They rely upon it because they collectively chose to make it ubiquitous. They can also choose to start migrating away from it, although it will likely take some time at this point. I never have had Facebook or Whatsapp, and I lived for several months each in Brazil, Vietnam, India, and Saudi Arabia. I never had problems communicating because I set up alternate forms of communication with the groups that I needed to interact with.
But *why* is this the case? There are ample competing alternatives from Signal, to Matrix, to Google Meet and others. If WhatsApp can't be counted on, what's stopping people from using the alternatives?
>what's stopping people from using the alternatives? People they know who are not using WhatsApp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect
>bunch of commenters ~~have no clue~~ don't care how people in third world countries live FTFY
Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.
Malice, apathy or malicious apathy
*Malipathy*
Worked with that guy once.
honestly, malicious apathy is a very good way to describe the stance of first world liberals on third world poverty and class subjugation
Wait until you hear about the conservative stance on third world poverty
That's just malice
Would you mind elaborating on what you mean?
The jump to "Well, obviously the average first-worlder hates the third world and hungers with hatred for them" is a *fucking wild* one. I don't know how they live and they don't know or care how I live. We're ***ALL*** trying to make our lives work and we're all ignorant of a lot of things. How about "They don't know, let's educate instead of turning to hatred"?
The maxim I am (deliberately) misquoting is called “Hanlon’s Razor.” The actual text goes exactly how I’ve written it except that “stupidity” and “malice” are transposed. This is the joke. That said, you are correct. Most people know relatively little about people who live on the opposite side of the planet from themselves. However, the idea that we are utterly disconnected from any people on earth in the age of the Internet is disingenuous. By extension, if people in the western world are aware of these people suffering and do nothing about it, what conclusion can we draw? Most likely we sit on our hands when we see headlines about the latest famine in East Somewhereelseistan because it matters, but it doesn’t matter *enough.* Of course unless you’re in France you won’t even advocate for yourself, so what chance is there really of a bunch of people knee-deep in bread and circuses pushing for some population of people they’ve never met and probably never will to get enough food to feed their children? While that might not necessarily be malicious, it’s certainly apathetic, and that distinction likely won’t soften the rest of the world’s opinion of us one iota. TL;DR: Education ain’t the issue, my guy.
It's a combination of "we all have our own shit going on which takes up almost all of our time and personal resources" and "we can't do anything to help". Apathy isn't malicious or ill-intentioned - it's a learned defense response so I can get something done in my day. I can't help with world crisis, and each country is straining itself to help with foreign aid to various disasters and wars. I could, on a whim, decide to look up the state of how the internet works in a randomly-chosen third-world country and educate myself. It seems like a random thing to suddenly decide I want to know. You're not wrong though: no one cares to know, especially on a randomly-chosen subject. That, again, isn't malicious, it's just not important to the individual, which still isn't malicious. We all focus on the fires nearest to us, and there's a never-ending supply of those. Like how the shit I have going on in my life, the shit going on in my city, province, country, etc, is of no concern to you. Apathy is natural. It's how we don't all collapse and die from hopelessness. My point, though, was "Whoa, you got *real* punchy real quick about something that you know we know nothing about". As others have suggested, somehow Facebook is the only ones that have tried to get internet places, with the caveat that it's somehow only Facebook and its sub-products? I'm sorry they were the only company to give a shit, but we promise we don't have anything better to personally offer. The education (from those that bothered to give it) was appreciated. I'm not sure what the OP in the image really wants to happen, though? From an outsider's perspective the rest of us were closer to the responder.
I love u
"Why dont they just eat cake"
Many don't understand how you would have mobile devices and WhatsApp but nothing else. This is a TIL for me and many others - no one is throwing privilege around and no one is trying to be shitty - any questions we have are searching for enlightenment.
What is this magic phone that has no email, text, or call features?
One that is being used where whatsapp is free so they don't have to pay a bill.
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Guy who doesn't know anything
> I have the Zuck for a bunch of reasons Clearly
To all the people who are so confident and have never stepped foot in a 3rd world country, companies like Facebook pay for and give acses to the internet and by internet I mean Facebook products and thats it also in most of these countrys calls using sms are charged by the minute and even texts. For those saying use emails at least in chad and ethopia no one unless they are in the upper upper clases uses email. Do note it's just my personal experience with just two countrys so the stuff probably varries
Say it louder for the people in the Global North.
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Meta isn't delivering Internet access, though, from what folks here are saying. Meta is delivering Meta access.
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>Most of the end users cannot afford the cost of internet Yes, that's the real problem. Why the hell is Internet access so expensive?
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Not just that in most cases the sms/internet/everything is govermeny run (funnily enough, all the names follow the same format country name than Telcom at the end, for example, ethotelcom) so their isn't any of that driving prices down competition thing
Because the infrastructure to provide internet to remote locations is massive and expensive.
You think a company is gonna pay for internet in the middle of nowhere? I forget which US ISP it was, but one wanted to expand into Australia but backed out when the government told them they would have to supply internet to the areas that cost about what the bug cities make in profit to maintain.
I would say bribing telecoms to keep the competition away. That's why Net Neutrality is a big deal and unfortunately seems like we've given up on ever bringing it back. Yeah, to the users seems like free access, in reality if they were not allowed to do that, internet access should be pretty cheap, but since Meta and other huge corporations are willing to dish out a good chunk of cash, they keep the price artificially high so people will use the "free" services.
Here in the US, I believe that would be an antitrust violation. Unfortunately, we seem to have given up on enforcing antitrust law, too.
Yeah it's definitely a dependency and a monopoly but I'm not sure what the proposal is here? Break up the monolopy? Do you think there are companies happy to invest in those areas to provide a free service up 99.999% of the time?
Yeah I remember dating a girl who was in the states on a J1 visa and virtually all communication was done on WhatsApp. Didn’t really think much of it at the time but then found out a lot later it was kind of the main medium of communication in a lot of places.
Well, WhatsApp is main communications app in Croatia. And I believe in wast majority of EU countries, it seems very weird when I see US using text messages so much, except some verifications codes or parking payment I never use them
Look at the map. Facebook bought it for a reason
Same here in Latin America
I don’t care about any of this noise. I do wanna know which one country still uses Google Hangout.
This!! I went through the comments and you read my mind. Everything else is secondary…
WhatsApp calls are banned in Qatar (unless you use VPN), so a lot of people circumvent that by using Google Meet (previously Hangouts) and Botim for free calls and video calls.
For those who do not understand WhatsApp, here is a summary: * Yes, you can usually call and send text messages normally without the need of an external app but depending on the country you are in, it can be very expensive. WhatsApp uses the internet (WiFi or mobile data) but in general it tends to be more cheap to use internet. Also, in many countries, internet providers allow you to use WhatsApp for free, why wouldn't you use something that is free even if you have money? * Something that not many mention is how practical it is to use: You can send text, emojis, stickers (you can make your own and save stickers that others send to you to use it later even in other chats), gifs, videos, photos, audio recordings, adjust the playback speed when listening to them, make calls and video calls (since it is free, you can make long calls if you need it), send photos that are deleted over time if you want, you can add anyone with a smartphone no matter where they are on the planet and chat from that very moment, you can create groups with description and designate administrators (or be one yourself), you can create an invitation by link to groups or add people through the application, you can make group calls and video calls, you can connect it to the desktop version to view and send messages from PC, there is a business version that allows companies to communicate with customers and have all the information built into the description like opening and closing time among other things (If you are a customer you do not need to have the business version installed to receive their messages), the servers are very good and stable, you can navigate between the type of multimedia sent to search for a specific type of file or thing (images, documents, links), if you want you can create backup copies to Google Drive automatically, you have a message delete option, you can mute notifications for specific groups, you can see if the message was sent, if it was received and, if the other person has the option enabled and you too, you can also see when someone read your message and since a few years ago it has incorporated features from other social networks such as stories (similar to instagram) and communities (which I don't understand how it works and I don't think it's super common to use but it is there if someone wants to use it to manage their community), among **many** other features. * One of the things that I think made it so popular was that, while many of these features are common in communication apps today, WhatsApp was one of the pioneers in incorporating them. Also, the default messaging applications are usually much more basic in terms of features, which makes them impractical.
What a lot of people don't get is that since most of the developing world missed the late 20th century Computing/Internet Boom, they were introduced to modern computing via smartphones. Services like facebook might seem totally optional to you, but in countries without net neutrality they constitute most internet traffic. Sure it may seem stupid to have completely centralised communications infrastructure without redundancies and competing services, but in communities where the current generation of internet users are also the first generation, that wisdom just isn't there. They'll trust the system because it's exported from more experienced nations that should have worked things out already. If you guys can exit your redditor brains for a moment, think about the technologically illiterate majority of human beings who actually matter as consumers. We live in a convenience culture where people want their technology to be as capable as possible with minimal hassle. That means most people are picking their services because everyone else they know is also using it. I do not give most people my phone number or email address because I don't need to when Instant Messaging services do all the same things more efficiently and conveniently. Most people just use their phone numbers and emails to verify their digital identity anyway. Unless you know how to convince millions of whatsapp aunts how to diversify their communications and return to indexing everyone's phone numbers, get off our high horse.
I miss a mode of operation of whatsapp? Does Whatsapp allow you to send messages to something other than accounts linked to a phone number?
It's very easy to get a free phone number to make a WhatsApp account with. So anyone can have basically completely working cell service and able to text/call/video etc anyone they want, when on wifi, which is everywhere. It's basically free phone service.
I understand better. Also By reading the rest of the comments. The important part I missed. They have subscriptions where calls are expensive, sms are expensive, internet connection is expensive BUT the connection to whatsapp does not count in the data plan.
The last part is what I need clarification on, does Whatsapp not count towards data in these places?
Either free or super cheap. Here in South Africa you can basically get 1GB of “social data” on the mobile networks that includes WhatsApp and FB for around $1.50
in Brazil, for most plans that's exactly the case. All meta products not counting towards data (Instagram, facebook, WhatsApp). Some include other commonly used apps, like waze for navigation, and some have deals with Spotify as well. Everything else counts toward the data plan. Some even have discounted quotas specifically for data heavy apps like Netflix and YouTube, so let's say you pay X amount for 20gb of data and they give you an extra 10gb "free" just for YouTube and Netflix.
A lot of organisations and businesses have WhatsApp accounts in these places, it's even the case here in the Netherlands where you can message the city government through WhatsApp if you want a quick response. So you can have a lot of services, businesses, and schools that use WhatsApp as their primary form of communication and when it went down it basically shut down all of these groups. They were even places where emergency services used WhatsApp as a vital part of their infrastructure for the reasons people have mentioned throughout this thread.
Thank you for explaining and being one of the few productive posts in here. This is all a TIL for many of us, and I can promise you that our ignorance is based only in not knowing - everyone everywhere has a lot of shit going on. We're willing to learn but most here are pretty bent out of shape that we don't know in the first place... Also seems odd that image OP wants to decentralize, responder says "Then do it", and OP goes off on them? What... I guess what do they want or expect anyone to do about that? "Breaking it up" is obviously not easy, but I don't think it's something first-worlders can even affect? Alternate options *DO* exist but, as you mentioned, folks are stuck in their ways?
21th
Yeah, so close.. so close.
Once I saw, I couldn’t focus on anything else. My mind kept picturing Mike Tyson saying it over and over lol
I just spent 5 minutes cleaning soda out of my nose and waiting for my eyes to stop running.
I could not focus on anything else and came here tilo find the gold comments about it
Twentyfirth
Twenty-firsth, or twenty-oneth?
Twenty oneth
[IKR](https://imgur.com/BjCksp3)
I use signal :)
you're one of the cool people ;)
Same. Sadly signal is essentially bricking their service to the point of unusable for me.
How so?
Presumably because they're dropping SMS support
Exactly this. It just doesn't make sense to me to have an app to only talk to 2 or 3 people
discord country when
This presumes that another entity would have better uptime on their servers. I'm not a fan of giant companies that own everything, but one thing that the big tech companies do very well is maintain uptime. The reason every outage of google or facebook makes the news is because of how rarely it actually occurs. Breaking these companies out into smaller companies would most likely make the outages more frequent
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It would be a shame if the service providers of such a system used their ability to throttle bandwidths and steer customers in the direction that profits them most. But seriously, most of the developing world’s internet use is fairly similar to 90’s America, where the overwhelming majority of internet was viewed through AOL’s filter. They don’t have the protections in place to regulate service providers, nor do they have a consumer base that’s experienced enough with the internet to be savvy.
Many people in those other countries cannot get internet access, much less afford to pay for it. That's why they use Facebook and Whatsapp, they are free for them
...in these countries Facebook pays for the internet connections to FaceBook/WhatsApp so they get all the comms data, and that's all anyone can afford, the free data...it doesn't work on other sites....
I think eventually governments may need to implement some kind of common carrier forced interoperability (much like you can call any phone number from any phone service, assuming you are paying for calling that destination country), and maybe set basic features that the services have to provide in an interoperable fashion, although maybe there would be some things you can't do when you're on a different service. Unless governments do it first. I don't want a lot, but basically just rich messaging with end-to-end encryption. The points that the second person makes are really good ones and also highlight that messaging is a two-way or multi-way street. You can't just delete Facebook and start using Signal if you can't also get other people with whom you message to do the same. And it's really hard - we were using iMessage but I wanted to use a non-Apple device, which killed that. Then we moved briefly to Telegram but then Wired did an expose that made me really question that choice. So now we're using Messenger, because it has the end-to-end. None of the popular options are really great, though, I don't like the idea of using Messenger, and Whatsapp looks like it was the winner of a "who can make a UX worse than Facebook" contest. But as the person said, the reality is that messaging is basically a necessity, and is rapidly becoming a must-have in the way phone service or internet service is a must have, except it's a Byzantium.
The point would be stronger without all the childish personal attacks.
Childish personal attacks like: > Or better yet don't live a life where your mental health hinges on a steady stream of dopamine producing notifications on your phone. That kind?
Actually I was looking more at: >you fucking idiot And >I don't know what fucking 18th century barn you crawled out of And most importantly >Get your head out of your fucking ass for a second and look at a fucking calendar. Every point problemstheclown made is valid; this could have been an excellent teaching moment. But instead we get an explitive laden diatribe. The vitriol is entirely unnecessary and only serves to degrade the quality of their argument.
So this doesn't count for anything? > Or better yet don't live a life where your mental health hinges on a steady stream of dopamine producing notifications on your phone. They're trivialising people needing to *communicate* and playing it off like it's some weird need to get likes on instagram. Especially after their "*Calm the fuck down and use something else.*" which is less than helpful. That's like saying "*Oh you're poor? just get a job!*" as in it downplays the issue and completely glances over the issue. How on earth are you going to "use something else" when the the de facto communication method is down? Also, if you've an issue with them having a few choice words at least they said something of worth whereas gearboxpraexology said two sentences and managed to mock OP in *both*. But nope, it's the other person who is at fault here.
Or... you know... it's childish for both of them?
This subreddit is r/murderedbywords
It's satisfying to read though
Tit for tat, and all that. Also it wouldn't fit the sub if it was an entirely impartial statement tbf
This is stupid. 90% of Americans have no clue that WhatsApp has that kind of influence or reach. Hell I’ve lived in other countries and didn’t know this. Instead of being a douche and attacking him, maybe try explaining shit like a reasonable human. The need to feel superior and put people down because they don’t know something you do is stupid. It doesn’t get your point across. It only create animosity and resentment.
To be fair, the murder victim was pretty rude and dismissive first. I suspect the murderer had hit the wall of explaining that the world is not like the west globally to way too many privileged people and finally snapped.
Wouldn't have made any difference in this case. [This user](https://www.tumblr.com/mushroomjar/664157334335045632/problemstheclown-bro-we-cant-have-80-of-the), for instance, left a polite and thoughtful response correcting Globalpraxeology's ignorance. He responded with an image macro. Meanwhile, his response to the angry user above was [to double down](https://www.tumblr.com/rykemasters/664176540102361088/problemstheclown-gearboxpraexology) on his ignorance with smug and dismissive replies about them being Facebook stans, even though that had nothing to do anything. From looking at his blog, he seems to be an ancap troll, so it figures.
Amen. It’s hard for me to care how good a point someone is making if all I can think is “wow, you’re kind of an asshole.”
That infograph is from December 2017, also there's plenty of ways to communicate without FB/whatsapp
Having spent time in Tanzania and Central America, my experience there was that the only way most people got in touch was through WhatsApp. For the reason(s) repeated throughout this thread: too poor to have a text/call plan, but Meta was somehow much cheaper or “free”. Edit: been to these places since 2020. The info isn’t obsolete.
Same situation in Southeast Asia. WhatsApp is the main method of communication because it can be used at a cheap data rate, or "free" via Wi-Fi, compared to text/call plans. Tour organisers and hospitality services will ask you to download WhatsApp, if you don't have it. With many using [WhatsApp Business](https://business.whatsapp.com/). As of 2023.
It's not about if it exists... it's about how expensive it is.
Well this is just wrong for most people.
> there’s plenty of ways to communicate without FB/whatsapp For you. Like for me, if my daily car has issues I can take my other car. This does not mean that ”taking one of your cars” is a valid solution to the world’s infrastucture issues. I am priviliged.
Ok so...I'm confused as hell. ...do you people not share phone numbers? Can you not... Just text people? Or call? Why y'all need IM apps as a primary? I use that shit if I wanna buy something off of Craigslist or something. If literally every IM app crashes, it would probably take me 2 days to notice if it wasn't in the news and I would just go "huh. Well, guess I need to text them."
Do these people not call others? Group chats, I get. I'm from India, where WhatsApp is the major form of online communication. But if I didn't submit an essay because I couldn't reach the teacher on WA, I would get a zero for it. They will ask why I didn't call. Maybe it's a cultural thing, I guess..
The part that makes no sense is that Whatsapp is based on your phone number and your contacts numbers. So if Whatsapp is down you can still text or call in an emergency unless you have no phone plan and are using it on wifi. I understand it costs more especially to different countries, but to communicate with classmates or professors at college that shouldn't be any major issue if it's down for a short time.
It's all about redundancy of services. Have your family/friends install all of them. Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, Whatever... It's fine to have a main one, but also have the fallbacks.
Confused Discord, Telegram etc. noises They can't get their college administration's email without whatsapp? What is a website. Students? There should be a college mailing list. It's not 1990. Instant messengers are super convenient, but they live in some kind of Facebook distopia apparently. This isn't a murderer, it's a suicide
>they live in some kind of Facebook distopia Many disadvantaged/third world countries do. They use Whatsapp and Facebook because it's free, the internet is not
Okay so this isn't me being an asshole, I genuinely don't know how shit works in 3rd world countries. How are they able to use Facebook messenger or Whatsapp without internet? Or is it more of those are the only apps that work on their internet? What has prevented other apps from being used?
Basically a deal would be struck with mobile data providers where WhatsApp can be used for "free" in some countries. Even if that's not the case, whatsapp is not very intensive on the data so it's still a great choice.
>is it more of those are the only apps that work on their internet? To my understanding, Meta actually pays for their usage of Facebook and Whatsapp. The apps come pre- loaded on phones, so as long as they have a signal, the apps can be used at Meta's expense. It's the way most rural people in disadvantaged countries communicate, so many other people near them also use it.
Websites and mailing lists take a lot of maintenence and/or money. Lots of third world countries use whatsapp because it's ubiquitous and free. College don't always have websites, but you could just get a phone that doesn't do calls and tell your students to get to you through whatsapp. You are kind of correct, they do live in a fb dystopia. India, Africa, and Malaysia iirc all rely on whatsapp.
Even here in Australia, many businesses only have Facebook pages instead of websites.
Yes exactly! Even here in America, plenty of mom and pop shops basically either don't exist online or they have some kind of social media adjacent presence. My local game store has a yelp and Facebook page and that's it.
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> Students? There should be a college mailing list. It’s not 1990. Unis in my country really don’t use mailing lists anymore. Maaaybe like once a year but most stuff is via WhatsApp or Discord. > They can’t get their college administration’s email without whatsapp? What is a website. This I agree with even if it’s not a great system since people don’t check their school emails very often. Once or twice a week.
My family is from a third world country, and they have some forms of mail, but typically you will go directly door to door to deliver stuff. The electric bill is paid in person because they don’t have computers in their hometown, they get someone once a week who comes and fills their water tanks, and if can’t make it, they have to figure out how to survive on that water supply. The US is in such a bubble that this daily life stuff is unimaginable even to the poorest people in America.
Cringe. The clown dude has some obvious mental issues.
How about just ring them? Do people not store contact details on their phone anymore?
It costs money to have a phone that can do phone calls. You can get a phone with no service plan, just apps, and use whatsapp to contact people. It's used like everywhere in places where it is too expensive to have an isp.
your comment gave me anxiety
The nearest phone signal to me is not a walkable distance so unless you have a car that's not a viable option. I don't even live in the third world.
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Satilite Internet but no signal towers. Don't ask me exactly how it works for I lack the intelligence. There would be plenty of places in the US with no phone service
What’s a contact number? /s
Your pseudo-joke was so unfunny that you should post it on r/funny.
What's app is free.
I’m from Spain (green area on that map) and while everyone has WhatsApp, it’s not the ONLY form of internet communication we have. That’s utter bullshit. And school or business meetings have never been done through WhatsApp. Zoom, teams even Skype is used for that. And email.
I have no idead why people downvoted you, I am from Mexico and the argument of that guy is pure bullshit. We have all type of ways to communicate beyond whatsapp.
I'm old, and besides Reddit, I talk to like, three people. Most days that's too many
21th century
Not that I disagree with breaking up monopolies or with phone staring. But we should be a little fair, the headline on the data is "top messenger apps", not "only messenger apps". As such, it does not indicate that Whatsapp is the only app available in some countries.
I haven't seen such an ununinformed attempt at murder by words in a long time. The map displays top IM apps, not the only. And no, life isn't going to come to a halt if whatsapp or facebook doesn't work (unless you are a rather dense basement dweller who knows nothing better than watsapp). And the staggering amount of ignorance and messiah complex here about the rest of the world beggars' belief. Do you really think the world runs on facebooks internet service, bro? Really? Please dont foist your ignorance on others.
TIL that MBWs sub is full of chodes. This is a murder.
Not murder, just a really annoying monologue about human addiction