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Once something like Facebook Messenger has reached a critical market share trying to get people to stop using it

writing this comment from South-East Europe where many people use facebook not just for cat pics but to find work and network with colleagues. It's a huge problem in developing countries where facebook IS the Internet. FB recently announced it would roll out job-posts for low-income workers[¹]. This will mean an even stronger lock-in for the user. While the discussion on ethics evolve mostly user-privacy and CA/FB role in Brexit/election hacking, the problem for less developed regions is facebook taking from them without giving back (fb is known not to pay it's taxes in Europe)

¹ https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/facebook-job-posts/



Echoing your statement, "Facebook is the Internet". In Africa most telecoms have special data bundles for Facebook and WhatsApp. Normal data bundles to browse the Internet are just too expensive. A dollar will give you unlimited access to Facebook and WhatsApp for about 2 weeks.

I have a few cows back in my village. I have toyed with the idea of creating a cattle monitoring application that would have to make use of Facebook or WhatsApp. The herder sends me a picture every evening of the cows. I want to piggy back on the affordable connectivity given to Facebook and WhatsApp. Yes I know, this would contribute to the problem but for me losing cattle is a bigger problem. From parent, finding a job is a bigger problem so we all get sucked into Facebook.


Getting FB to subsidize your cow tracking needs sounds great to me!


Sounds like a Messenger bot would work well for that use case actually.


Thanks I will add a note to my list of ideas on my rather long list of todo things.




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