There seems to be a lot of antagonism directed at Google and Facebook in this piece, making it sound as if those companies knowingly stole or forced people to fork over data.
I know sometimes it's easy to play the evil mega-corp card, but we need to ask ourselves the question: what is the goal here, to take down Google and Facebook? 'Cause if you're worried about an internet with extra surveillance and restrictions, taking down Google and Facebook doesn't really solve things.
Plus, even in a world with Google and Facebook out of the picture, there will still be political trolls hired by other companies and nation-states. There are also alternate-Googles that can just swoop in and fill the void you create if say you do take down Google. They are not necessarily better than Google today.
> making it sound as if those companies knowingly stole or forced people to fork over data
Both Google and Facebook are engaged in exactly those practices. Stolen and forced are apt adjectives to describe their behavior. Stolen like Whatsapp data after acquisition by Facebook, like contact lists, location history, voice recordings from your Android phone. Forced like Facebook constantly demanding you provide them your phone number, and making it clear to you that it's not an option by removing the 'no' button and replacing it with my favorite dark pattern 'i will provide it later'.
The problem with both is they're so much more than just a web service. They're pervasive in all facets of life in the developed world. You can't get away from then no matter how much you want to, because they're using your friends to effectively spy on you. And to an extent, both now hold most of the population hostage. I can only begin to imagine how I would need to change my entire lifestyle if I wanted to stop either of these companies from pervasively tracking me. Give up my smartphone, browse the web only with NoScript, only on sites that still work with it, never let my friends take photos of me and upload them, never use any of the popular chat apps to stay in touch with them, etc. Basically the only way to unplug from these monsters is to live like Stallman.
Given the amount of people deeply involved in the tech industry who read hn probably my opinion will not be very popular. But I feel obliged to add a few lines about WhatsApp.
In a worrying technological landscape, it has been for a long time an application with a good tradeoff between privacy and convenience.
I have always respected and praised this application, due to its philosophy: Acton and Koum made millions of dollars without the need of advertising.
> Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.
> These days companies know literally everything about you, your friends, your interests, and they use it all to sell ads.
> Remember, when advertising is involved you the user are the product.
> When people ask us why we charge for WhatsApp, we say “Have you considered the alternative?”
Like me, many people I know do not use social media (I'm 25 and not all of us use them, it's real), but virtually all of us use WhatsApp to keep in touch, share photos, locations, media, and even to create groups to discuss, meet, organize events.
We use the application in a so pervasive manner that we started considering it as a part of our daily routine: phrases such as "How long do you need to get there? Send me your position." are now regulars.
The reason we use wa, is because wa is not a social media.
Because "At WhatsApp, our engineers spend all their time fixing bugs, adding new features and ironing out all the little intricacies in our task of bringing rich, affordable, reliable messaging to every phone in the world. That's our product, and that's our passion. Your data isn't even in the picture. We are simply not interested in any of it."
Because when my mobile connection exceeds the data limit and my ISP applies a bandwidth throttling (32KBps) it is the only application that is able to send messages without making me worry about additional costs.
Because when loading an image, this is compressed in an automatic way.
Because it allows me to call my relatives and friends easily and simply when I'm abroad.
The problem is not only the integration of wa data without prior permission, but also the recent decisions taken, aka "status".
Status is a social media thing, and nobody wants another useless social media.
All my friends are asking me
- They do not know what to invent to know everything about us, right ?
- Why this after end2end encryption ?
- Do you see how little this is used ?
- The reviews on the store are the worst of all the time ! Why did they do this ?
- Not here ! Can I get the old version ?
- I hope in many are gonna leave, which are the alternatives ?
When I see certain things I ask myself: `who made this decision and why`.
I don't know if I have the answer to this, but I do not like the attitude.
If things are going to get worse, I will uninstall without looking back.
But it's a real shame.
This pattern has been emerging since the FaceBook acquisition,
so I would bet this is intentional, it's an attitude, it's a vision.
The intent is not to "play the evil mega-corp card",
I don't want to take them down,
it's that I would prefer to pay a decent annual fee to a great service rather than being used as a product.
It's fascinating that people find it so pointless to change platforms for the sake of their own privacy. Generally when I suggest to my peers we start chatting via Signal, they think I'm a conspiracy nut or something, it's fascinating and a little disappointing. Strangely, this "why bother" not only seems to apply to passive family users who don't understand what's behind these systems, but people who do.
Signal is too difficult to be used by my relatives, but do not underestimate the issue. Dad uses the app to work and has not uninstalled, while mom, did the upgrade, came to ask "why the gardener of the nearby sends me pictures while he's kissing his girlfriend?", and then uninstalled the whole, she's now using sms again.
> Like me, many people I know do not use social media (...) but virtually all of us use WhatsApp to keep in touch, share photos, locations, media, and even to create groups to discuss, meet, organize events.
>(...)
> The reason we use wa, is because wa is not a social media.
It seems you are confused about what social media is. Social media is whatever you use to socialize. Email is the long standing king of social media even before the term was coined as a marketing ploy. Whatsapp is simply one of the newcomer. So you are indeed using social media by using whatsapp.
Another hint that whatsapp is social media is the fact that they got bought by facebook for a hefty sum.
Thanks for your clarification, not a native english speaker here.
I hope the concept, as a whole, is clear.
Is "social network" the right term?
A simple "that's the wrong word" would have made your point: I've always found HN a great website, please say "sorry if I burst you bubble" someone else.
Quoting as another user replies to your inflammatory tone
> Phew lad. You're a bit far gone aren't you.
I don't think the point is so much about taking them down, as not letting them decide the future. From a larger perspective 2005-2015 is almost like a lost decade of companies implmenting things on new platforms under properitery ownership. Like many other things, the discussion about social networks and reliable information is sort of early 00s. So I would say the goal is to get back to a less short term outlook on development of the Internet.
I know sometimes it's easy to play the evil mega-corp card, but we need to ask ourselves the question: what is the goal here, to take down Google and Facebook? 'Cause if you're worried about an internet with extra surveillance and restrictions, taking down Google and Facebook doesn't really solve things.
Plus, even in a world with Google and Facebook out of the picture, there will still be political trolls hired by other companies and nation-states. There are also alternate-Googles that can just swoop in and fill the void you create if say you do take down Google. They are not necessarily better than Google today.