SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A judge in Sao Paulo has ordered WhatsApp to shut down for 48 hours, starting at 9PM Eastern tonight.
WhatsApp is the single most used app in Brazil, with about 93 million users, or 93% of the country's internet population. It's a particularly useful service for Brazil's youth and poor, many who cannot afford to pay the most expensive plans on the planet.
Brazilian telco's have been lobbying for months to convince the government that WhatsApp's voice service is unregulated and illegal (not entirely unlike the taxi industry's posture on Uber), and have publicly blamed the "WhatsApp effect" for driving millions of Brazilians to abandon their cell phone lines.
A WhatsApp shut-down would be akin to taking half the country off the electricity grid because of an industry squabble over the impending threat of solar power.
Update: Brazil court lifts suspension of Facebook's WhatsApp service
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Thursday December 17 2015, @02:35PM
Brazilian telco's have been lobbying for months to convince the government that WhatsApp's voice service is unregulated and illegal (not entirely unlike the taxi industry's posture on Uber), and have publicly blamed the "WhatsApp effect" for driving millions of Brazilians to abandon their cell phone lines.
It's okay if millions of Brazilians abandon their cell phone lines for a service they feel meets their needs more efficiently or with better quality.
It's okay if millions of Americans abandon taxis for a service they feel meets their needs more efficiently or with better quality.
It's okay if millions of people abandon a good or service for an alternative they feel better about. It's okay if others don't feel that alternative is as good or as effective, or as affordable, or even as safe. It's okay for people to select what they personally subjectively feel at the moment is their best alternative. Sure it sucks if you were hoping to provide the now-rejected good or service, but that is the risk entrepreneurs take. It's actually okay if entrepreneurs occasionally suffer loss.
It's okay [fee.org]
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday December 17 2015, @02:55PM
Now, it can be a problem. If 90% of the cost reduction of your new way of producing power from coal comes from dumping the coal ash into the local reservoir because you don't legally count as a power plant and don't face the same regs and 10% comes from doing things a new way, the government has good reason to say "Hey, uh, that's still illegal and you should be regulated like traditional coal power plants."
This Brazilian thing seems more like regulatory capture and broken windows fallacies, to which your point is excellent and still stands.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:08PM
Now, it can be a problem. If 90% of the cost reduction of your new way of producing power from coal comes from dumping the coal ash into the local reservoir because you don't legally count as a power plant and don't face the same regs and 10% comes from doing things a new way, the government has good reason to say "Hey, uh, that's still illegal and you should be regulated like traditional coal power plants."
Right, that's a problem, but in that case it ought to be possible to sue you for criminal trespass for dumping your stuff. Unfortunately since the dawn of the industrial revolution that recourse has often been blocked.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:26PM
Property rights aren't a panacea for tragedy of the commons, as neatly as you might think that would put a bow on your libertarian ideals.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @05:13PM
In fact, the private/public (and sometimes personal) property dichotomy (trichotomy?) could be said to be the root cause of tragedy of the commons in the first place.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday December 18 2015, @05:08AM
It could, but I also think that's simplistic? Human needs conflict in a lot of subtle ways.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @03:00PM
It is ok. The problem is when the gov and 'free' enterprise become one in the same. The interests of the people become the interests of the corporations. Corporations are after more profit thats it. That is their whole lot in life. But when the gov owns the corporation (or the other way around) the gov becomes more interested in profit than its charter to help the people it governs.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @03:26PM
Under communism, the government has absorbed the companies and you have one entity controlling everything.
Under fascism, the companies have absorbed government and you have one entity controlling everything.
These are, of course, completely different, and really hate each other. (See the Eastern Front, for example.)
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday December 17 2015, @05:55PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @04:45PM
At least in Brazil.
Like it or not, the are a sovereign nation and they get to decide on their own what is OK or not. Not you, not me..
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday December 17 2015, @06:54PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17 2015, @09:38PM
It is not OK to have a monopoly. Any monopoly has to be broken. It is not OK for an app to have 90% users base. Such an app has to be forcefully split; whatever it takes..
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday December 18 2015, @01:39AM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings