3 ms·

That's true, but you appear to imply that it's fundamentally bad. I disagree with that strongly and it's a huge way the market functions - a new company comes

That's true, but you appear to imply that it's fundamentally bad. I disagree with that strongly and it's a huge way the market functions - a new company comes in and reduces costs for consumers, while still making a profit. Old company loses (or changes), while the new company and consumers win. It's how most discount stores work, airlines. Heck we're seeing it lately in equity trading with trade fees dropping to 0. Sure, robinhood did it first to win market share and make more money, but it's still been good for consumers. It's how walmart and then amazon became so dominant (though they also reduced services). This is in no way an endorsement of anything facebook is doing, btw, Libra scares the bejeesus out of me, but that doesn't mean the incumbents aren't robbing people blind.

CaptainZapp 7y ago
That's true, but you appear to imply that it's fundamentally bad. Not necessarily and a lot has been done to smooth the path - and lower the fees - for financial transactions. Mobile money in Africa (where you once, not that long ago, had to entrust an envelope with cash to a bus driver, hoping that it arrives at the intended destination) is a good example. But I think that "helping the underbanked" is a smokescreen anyway. Just like "Bringing internet to the poor", via internet.org, is a smokescreen for the underhanded tactic of smuggling zero routing into the very fabric of internet usage in poor countries and making Facebook (and their approved partners) == Internet. There's never anything altruistic in whatever Facebook does. It's about accumulation of ever more power, money and data. And you just need to look at their short history for the proof in the pudding.
mrep 7y ago
Yep, consumers win. In fact, Charles Schwab just dropped there trading fees yesterday and equity trading stocks completely tanked. Shares of Schwab fell 9.7%, TD Ameritrade plummeted 25.8%, and E-Trade shares cratered 16.4% due to it [0]. [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/01/charles-schwab-is-eliminating-online-commissions-for-trading-in-us-stocks-and-etfs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/01/charles-schwab-is-eliminatin...
aeturnum 7y ago
Yes, of course, it's good to take less of people's money. I think the center of their critique was not that the current incumbents are good, but that the framing implied that this new system would be better in some fundamental way. That this was a system of a different order than the current one.

CaptainZapp 7y ago

That's true, but you appear to imply that it's fundamentally bad. Not necessarily and a lot has been done to smooth the path - and lower the fees - for financial transactions. Mobile money in Africa (where you once, not that long ago, had to entrust an envelope with cash to a bus driver, hoping that it arrives at the intended destination) is a good example. But I think that "helping the underbanked" is a smokescreen anyway. Just like "Bringing internet to the poor", via internet.org, is a smokescreen for the underhanded tactic of smuggling zero routing into the very fabric of internet usage in poor countries and making Facebook (and their approved partners) == Internet. There's never anything altruistic in whatever Facebook does. It's about accumulation of ever more power, money and data. And you just need to look at their short history for the proof in the pudding.

mrep 7y ago

Yep, consumers win. In fact, Charles Schwab just dropped there trading fees yesterday and equity trading stocks completely tanked. Shares of Schwab fell 9.7%, TD Ameritrade plummeted 25.8%, and E-Trade shares cratered 16.4% due to it [0]. [0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/01/charles-schwab-is-eliminating-online-commissions-for-trading-in-us-stocks-and-etfs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/01/charles-schwab-is-eliminatin...

aeturnum 7y ago

Yes, of course, it's good to take less of people's money. I think the center of their critique was not that the current incumbents are good, but that the framing implied that this new system would be better in some fundamental way. That this was a system of a different order than the current one.