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Comment by __MatrixMan__

8 days ago

When you're at a protest and the government shuts off the internet in response to the protest. It's happening right now in Togo, has been for ten days (https://pulse.internetsociety.org/en/shutdowns/).

My eyes are opened as to how much more power the people would have if cell phones were all mesh network devices, especially as we enter a world where having a working cell phone is easier than having running water or food.

  • I'm not holding my breath--it would seem that keeping the people down is more profitable.

    But if it happens we'll have to figure out how to write partition tolerant apps, which I think would be a lot of fun. It would also make "going viral" so much more apt, as you might catch the content from people you got physically close to.

I dunno, that still sounds like a perfect use case for a third-party app like the one this post is about. I'm not sure government crackdowns are a core enough experience that it needs a first-party app from Apple.