Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by yosito 1712 days ago
> they are not important

They are important because they contain a significant portion of many people's address books. When Facebook was offline a few days ago, I had no way of reaching about two thirds of my contacts. And I'm someone who's made a significant effort to move off of Facebook. There were people I wanted to contact that day that the only way to reach them would have been to ask mutual friends for other contact details. And there were a few people that I either don't have mutual friends with or who our mutual friends were also only reachable via Facebook. If legislation aims for some form of "interoperability" the main condition should be that, if Facebook were to disappear again, I would still have the ability to reach all of my Facebook contacts via another network.
2 comments
listenallyall 1712 days ago
I loathe Facebook and am hesitant to take its side on any issue. But if you cannot be bothered to ask your "contacts" for a phone number, email address, Telegram, whatever, I don't see why it is Facebook's responsibility to ensure you have access to these people 24/7.
link
smoldesu 1712 days ago
That's a social issue, not a Facebook one. Interoperability is an insane ask that has absolutely no precedent, and I say that as one of the biggest FOSS enthusiasts this side of the Mississippi. There's simply no way that the United States government could force a private company's hand like that, and even if they did the fallout from that would be insane. Where do we stop with interoperability? Do all browsers need to share the same history storage format? Do all cloud storage providers need to use the same app? Do all of us need to use the same operating system, communication protocols and news outlets?

No, because we're different people. Some people are drawn to Facebook's firehose feed, and there's not really anything you can do to stop them in a free world. It's a disgusting, albeit perfectly legal exchange of goods and services. Microsoft and Apple fought long and hard to make sure consumer protection laws like that never saw the light of day.

link