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This is an interesting story and I would like to learn more about libra-coin. Unfortunately I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias that is making t

• an_d_rew 7y ago
  Well, perhaps a deep exploration of the pros and cons are warranted, but... FB has been caught willfully and negligently lying multiple times. (And yes, I'm aware that many banks have done the same.) Nonetheless, why would I choose to trust them over any other payment system? What's Zuck's testimony to Congress going to be in five years? "We could have done better. We will do better. Who could have forseen this nightmare mess...?"
  • trhway 7y ago
    Those dumb f@cks trust me with their money...
  • Amygaz 7y ago
    My impression of what Libra is to FB is equivalent to that Silicon Valley episode where they did an ICO to found their business and get more users at the same time. I don’t believe FB’s altruistic intention for one second.
    • xenospn 7y ago
      I can't wait for the 2025 3-season Facebook Special of American Greed.
  • what_ever 7y ago
    Sure, but there should be a discussion about the tech and how it may/may not turn out instead of hur-dur FB bad. This is Hacker News after all not Privacy News.
• generalk 7y ago
  > 1. The world could use an online independent currency I'm not 100% steeped in cryptocurrency theory, and so I don't understand why this is presented as if it's agreed on by everyone. What problems does the world have that would be solved by an online, independent [of any nation, presumably?] currency? > 2. Adding stability to blockchain currencies and having > that work on a large scale is a good thing Having a blockchain-based currency at a huge scale would be interesting for many reasons, but I'm not seeing how it's a fiat "good thing," excepting if you're excited about the technology and waiting for a big player to push it forward. > 3. Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or > control facebook derives isn't done through force, it's by > making a coin better than all the other coins. Other > people are still free to make their competing coins. I can't buy into the meritocracy/free market purity argument for a currency. Things are already volatile enough, and sometimes economies collapse and people's life savings become worthless. "Other people can make competing coins" sounds an awful lot to me like treating collapse as a feature.
  • behringer 7y ago
    No doubt if FB (i refuse to call them libra) coins become popular, when world governments limit crypto currency at FB's request, FB coins will no doubt be the only exception.
    • lwansbrough 7y ago
      Zucc Buccs it is, then.
      • behringer 7y ago
        Zuckerberg: Every Zucc Buck will be worth 5 British pounds! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shxiy7l5b_4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shxiy7l5b_4
  • mdorazio 7y ago
    I'm fairly anti-crypto, but there are a couple items in favor of #1: - A currency outside of traditional governments would theoretically be free of currency manipulation by those governments (ex. China and the Yuan) - An international currency can sidestep the artificial middleman fees and friction caused by traditional monetary exchanges. Ex. my friend who is currently studying in Japan wanted to get some money from her US bank account to Japan to pay for tuition and not only had to wait for banks to be open, but also had to pay exchange and transfer fees. - This one doesn't necessarily require an independent currency, but crypto also theoretically enables the fabled land of online micro-tipping for content creators, publishers, etc.
• apazzolini 7y ago
  1. Another one? 2. In the sense that it'll likely lift other cryptos, sure. Is that actually a good thing? 3. Facebook IS the internet for many consumers in third world countries as their FB access is subsidized and free. I find it hard to believe FB isn't going to similarly force-push Libra. Hacker News is biased against both Facebook and cryptocurrency, and for good reasons. I hope Libra fails.
• Morizero 7y ago
  > a strong anti-facebook bias I can tell you from own experience that Facebook's dark patterns are incredibly frustrating at best, and at worst come off as malicious to the end-user. For example, I refuse to download the Facebook app. When using the mobile website, it often shows me as having new messages. Clicking the notification then redirects me to download the app. Requesting the desktop site, however, shows no notifications and has no redirect. How am I supposed to trust a company that puts me through that? Is it a bias when they actually lie to me almost daily?
  • csomar 7y ago
    No, I think you misunderstood the notifications. I did at first. Basically Facebook shows you when someone read your messages. This shows up as a notification in messenger mobile but not in the web version. There are others too but I don’t remember the exact circumstances.
    • objectivetruth 7y ago
      No, I think you misunderstood the parent because I've encountered the pattern EXACTLY as he described it. I have one device that I use for insecure stuff like FB Messenger and I have to go use it whenever I want to see new messages and I don't have access to a desktop.
    • Morizero 7y ago
      You're just strengthening my point - if I'm misunderstanding something, it's because Facebook has deliberately chosen to make it difficult to understand. That's further reinforced by the fact that they have an incentive to do so - increasing app installs.
• choppaface 7y ago
  > 3. Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook derives isn't done through force, it's by making a coin better than all the other coins. Other people are still free to make their competing coins. But how do you define “better”? Bitcoin has shown you can have non-consensus about very basic things like the ledger and all chaos breaks loose. And what if it’s a large corporation driving non-consensus?
• cat199 7y ago
  > 1. The world could use an online independent currency and how exactly does having a stablecoin backed by facebook and a consortium of other vc/bank funded corporations achieve this?
• simias 7y ago
  >Unfortunately I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias And a strong anti-cryptocurrency/blockchain bias. I'd argue that both are for good reasons however, the burden of proof that this is actually something positive for the world is very clearly in the other camp as far as I'm concerned.
• smsm42 7y ago
  > 1. The world could use an online independent currency Maybe, but "Facebook" and "independent" hardly go together. > Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook derives isn't done through force True, but the measure of control average person has over facebook is also close to zero. With government, you at least have courts, elections, Constitution finally... it is usually hard to go against the government, but it is possible and at least the presumption is that the government is there to the benefit and by the consent of the people (it's not very useful for a random citizen but at least that's the principle which can have some useful consequences sometimes). Facebook is there for whoever owns Facebook, and has zero obligations to anybody else. It could completely block you any time it wants to for any reason it wants to, could deny you use of any of its resources with no explanation needed and no recourse possible, it could change its policies any time with zero concern for your interests, etc. > I just wish there could be a deeper exploration of both the pros and cons. What are the pros of specifically this Facebook proposition that can not be achieved without Facebook being in the picture?
  • Lucadg 7y ago
    Agree. A world currency in the hands of a few corporations is arguably worse than any government issued fiat. It will be more efficient and pervasive in both good and bad ways. [Edit: spelling]
  • rdm_blackhole 7y ago
    > It could completely block you any time it wants to for any reason it wants to As opposed to what banks did in Cyprus in 2013 when they seized the money on the savings account of their own customers and basically stopped people from withdrawing their money from their own bank accounts? And said customers had no recourse at all against the banks helping themselves to their money?
    • floe 7y ago
      In theory, the recourse is that the people can exert power over the banks by electing different politicians. Obviously, sometimes that doesn't work as well as we'd like, but there's not even such a possibility of recourse when Facebook fucks you over.
• justinmchase 7y ago
  There are a lot of possible nuanced conversations but I think that the rejection of FB-coin on principle is the simplest argument and doesn't require much nuance to achieve. That principle simply being the principle of decentralization which is core to the concept and purpose of block chains. No single or cluster of large companies or governments can create and control a block chain without violating that principle and thus a rejection on principle is justifiable.
  • mathnmusic 7y ago
    We remember Internet.org - a "free Internet" that conveniently left out all of FB's competitors like Google, Amazon etc. Nothing has changed with their tactics.
• mjevans 7y ago
  I would prefer the solution to be GNU Taler: https://taler.net/en/index.html https://taler.net/en/index.html https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Taler https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Taler (late 2018) https://www.coindesk.com/free-software-messiah-richard-stallman-we-can-do-better-than-bitcoin https://www.coindesk.com/free-software-messiah-richard-stall... (2016) https://news.bitcoin.com/richard-stallman-gnu-unlike-bitcoin/ https://news.bitcoin.com/richard-stallman-gnu-unlike-bitcoin...
• ineedasername 7y ago
  1) I'm not saying that's wrong, but I don't think it has the self-evident nature you attribute to it. 2) Agreed, though I'd really like it to be someone other than Facebook that does it. 3) We already have all sorts of other currencies. Frequent flier miles spring to mind, which can often be converted for other use. If they're not popular enough to be universally fungible, then in your terms they're not a "better" currency. It's also not self evident that any coin will do any better.
• legohead 7y ago
  Until cryptocurrencies can deal with 51% attacks they are a waste of time in my mind. The technology is interesting, and that's about it.
  • viraptor 7y ago
    51% attack applies to mining. Libra will not be mined. They have 33% attack on voting... but if 1/3 of the founding companies disagree about some transfer, they've got bigger issues than just that attack.
    • waynecochran 7y ago
      If there is no mining, how does proof of work occur to create coins? I only have an understanding of how blockchain works, but proof of work seems like a necessary ingredient in any cryptocurrency system.
      • rahkiin 7y ago
        Another comment in this thread says there is no proof of work. And that it isn’t actually a cryptocurrency.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• dooglius 7y ago
  Unless I misunderstood, it's not independent as it's backed by fiat reserves.
• 50656E6973 7y ago
  >3. Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook derives isn't done through force, it's by making a coin better than all the other coins. Other people are still free to make their competing coins. Sure it has. Not with the traditional physical force of armies from the industrial, feudal, agricultural or previous ages; but rather with the psychological force of the information age, executed by armies of programmers and social engineers.
• feanaro 7y ago
  I kind of agree with your first two points, but fail to see how Facebook's coin could ever be hoped to achieve this. In what fantasy universe will it be independent of Facebook's control? In what world is the inevitable accompanying tracking of all financial information, cross-referenced with a huge social database by a modern surveillance giant a good thing? > Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook derives isn't done through force, it's by making a coin better than all the other coins. It may not be done through sheer force, but when people are making their local decisions, they usually do not have a complete perception of the global ramifications of their actions. The end result might therefore still be something very undesirable for ~everyone.
• FridgeSeal 7y ago
  > 1. The world could use an online independent currency Could it? Why? Independent from who? Because watching the disasters and scams that go on in cryptocurrencies because they don’t have any regulatory oversight, doesn’t make me inclined to think an “independent” currency will be any better. Anyways, it’s not even independent, it’s controlled by a conglomerate of tech and finance companies and lorded over by Facebook, it’s about as un-independent as you can get. > 2. Adding stability to blockchain currencies and having that work on a large scale is a good thing Because as we all know, adding yet another currency to the mix has functioned to stabilise things previously. Except now this time it’s run by corporations and lacks anything about what made crypto currencies interesting or worthwhile in the first place. > 3. Unlike government issued currencies, any monopoly or control facebook derives isn't done through force, it's by making a coin better than all the other coins. Other people are still free to make their competing coins. In theory, yes; in reality, no. Humans are not creatures of perfect rationality that balance up all their options and make informed, ideal decisions at every point. The crypto currency market has been the perfect example of this: huge fluctuations due to hype and pump-and-dump schemes. Coins unequivocally do not succeed on their technical or theoretical merit. Moreover, all things being equal, I think a crypto currency backed by Facebook is something that should be avoided with a 10 foot pole.
• ezconnect 7y ago
  This is just another way to skim off a few cents on user transactions.
• meerita 7y ago
  "1. The world could use an online independent currency" If it is owned, it not independent.
• _cs2017_ 7y ago
  > I think hackernews has a strong anti-facebook bias Is HN really more anti-Facebook than the general population? If so, why?
  • roberto 7y ago
    > Is HN really more anti-Facebook than the general population? Yes, definitely. > If so, why? Because the general population cares less about privacy than HN. But I (not OP) think it goes deeper than that, and I've seen people here deliberately spreading lies about FB.
    • _cs2017_ 7y ago
      Interesting. What else, besides privacy concerns, could be at play?
      • throwaway84_TO 7y ago
        A little while ago I played with the idea that if the masses were convinced that breaking up Facebook (or Google, Amazon, etc) was a good idea and that it eventually happened - the surviving BigTech "shrapnel" would be less capable to stand up against a government seeking information or control over them. A paranoid and overly Orwellian idea for sure, but interesting to play around with!
  • DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Facebook never clicked for me. I'm not really a proper programmer. I know a little HTML and CSS, but I seem to fit in here better than most places. I have a Certificate in GIS, I run my own websites and I seem to relate to the internet differently than most people who are into Facebook. The comments I see on HN seem to generally agree with that pattern: It's seems like it's "just not my cup of tea" for a lot of people who are more computer literate than average. On top of that, the privacy issues have become such a big deal of late.
  • lmm 7y ago
    I've heard it alleged that HN "top users" are disproportionately Google employees; if so that would explain it.
• tomp 7y ago
  I don't have an anti-Facebook bias (ok I do, but it's not relevant in this case), but I do have a strong anti-blockchain-as-a-buzzword bias. 1. If the blockchain & all transactions are not public, how is this different to having a non-blockchain based online currency (e.g. "Facebook credits")? 2. If the currency is pegged to USD, how is this different from just having USD in your PayPal account? My hunch is, this is just a marketing/regulation-evasion exercise. It's not "currency" (it's crypto-currency) so they're not forced to follow the same AML/KYC/capital control/credit check regulations... Governments will quickly catch up though.
• xtat 7y ago
  Gotta say it: it ain't just HN that doesn't like Facebook :)