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I hope this doesn't cause Facebook to give up on Libra. I personally have no desire to own Libra. But traditional bank accounts kind of suck as a product and I

• capableweb 7y ago
  Traditional banking replaced by company focused on good technology, sure, that sounds good. That's not what Libra aim(ed) for though. Libra was designed as a currency to take over the world, replacing the rest. You do not want a for-profit company to run a global currency. Sure, let them run banks, one bank won't rule the world. But the one who holds all the money, will.
  • lacker 7y ago
    I do want a for-profit company to run a global currency. I would rather there be hundreds of global currencies, with me free to choose which one I would rather use, if any.
    • capableweb 7y ago
      If a for-profit company is running the currency, the users of the currency are in a loosing position. Remember, the for-profit company wants profit, so good luck fighting with them about the currency. "hundreds of global currencies" sounds like a good idea to me too, as long as they are out of the hands of for-profit companies.
      • kebman 7y ago
        Funny. The USA seems to have the complete opposite view to yours! :D The Federal Reserve is just about as close to a private company as any, running your entire economy. Certainly it's a for profit venture. But then that's profits funneled away from public coffers, and not to it. Sure, the Fed has a pretty clear mandate from the Congress, deputizing them into a certain public role, but other than that, they receive little to no ‘advice’ on how to do things, and stand free to make private profit for a small cartel of privately owned banks. The reason for this non-public setup is so that Congress won't simply print more money at will, which would be far worse.
        • qaq 7y ago
          You do realize that FED transfers it's profits to US Treasury to the tune of 100 billion dollars per year?
          • erikpukinskis 7y ago
            Correct, the fed funnels money away from savings accounts to the Treasury, exporters, and banks.
          • kebman 7y ago
            But unlike just about all public agencies, stock holders get to keep a fair amount too. Not to mention that a great deal of tax money goes towards servicing interest on loans. On top of that; well, let's not mince words: "Quantitative easing" is essentially theft.
        • capableweb 7y ago
          I agree with you, just wanted to let you know that "running your entire economy" is not accurate as I don't live there. We would all be a little better by not assuming things about people :)
          • kebman 7y ago
            The context is that the Fed serves the USA, and I don't live "there" either. So "your (...) economy" is of course referring to the American economy.
• jonahhorowitz 7y ago
  1 and 2 are solved by a decent credit union. 3 is solved by a decent credit card, 4 and 5 are solved by Apple/Google Pay. None of these require a cryptocurrency.
  • BubRoss 7y ago
    What about using your money electronically without permission from a large organization?
    • NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      How does a Facebook currency help here?
      • BubRoss 7y ago
        The comment I replied to said cryptocurrency.
        • NeedMoreTea 7y ago
          Libra is a cryptocurrency from Facebook, and intended as a token of exchange is also a currency. (Did that really need spelling out?) Thus the cryptocurrency Libra is no help at all shielding you from the permission of large corporations.
          • BubRoss 7y ago
            The comment I replied to just said cryptocurrency, so I was talking about cryptocurrency in general, not libra specifically (Did that really need spelling out?). Also some centralized cryptocurrencies still use keys and random addresses, which means they work by default unless the addresses are blacklisted.
    • jonahhorowitz 7y ago
      I think that's generally unsolved since right now you can't convert currency into _any_ cryptocoin without KYC (know your customer).
• NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Do you really think a Facebook currency is not going to charge fees and upsell you left, right and centre the first moment they think they can get away with it? That's as well as targeting advertising and selling data of your spending patterns.
  • hinkley 7y ago
    Pretty much my feeling. I can never tell when discussing matters like this if the other party is expressing legitimate concerns poorly considered, or if I’m witnessing some astroturfing campaign. JBoss was the first astroturfing campaign I learned about (and if you’re reading this, Marc, fuck you. Yeah people still remember.) I know these sorts of things have been going on forever but it feels like it’s getting worse over time. To the point I’m not sure I know who to believe anymore.
    • leesalminen 7y ago
      GP is the founder of parse, acquired by Facebook. I’d imagine he has a nice chunk of FB stock :).
  • lacker 7y ago
    It's not that I think the Libra product is going to be fantastic per se. I just think that competition will force all the companies to make their products better. I don't want the government to prevent companies from making products, I want to be able to choose of my own free will whether it's a good product or not.
    • NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      My difficulty is, at heart, I don't want my tokens of exchange to be a product at all. I want the guarantee of universality that comes with money. Accessible to rich and poor alike, good credit or bad. Anything that tries to edge that out via the market is inherently a bad thing. Ultimately for all except stockholders. A central bank backed cryptocurrency with all the traits of universality and legal tender may be a better bet... I am fully in favour of the various new banking services and apps that are springing up, services to manage, transfer, save and invest better etc. That's an appropriate place for the market. Even there it's needed regulation to ensure the most marginal in society can get a basic bank account, or not get stiffed on fees.
• hanniabu 7y ago
  Sounds like you should be rooting for Bitcoin and Ethereum than Libra.
  • lacker 7y ago
    I root for Bitcoin and Ethereum more than I root for Libra. But I am rooting for all of them.
• TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  Have you considered moving to Europe? I'm being slightly facetious, but there are banks here that are better at all of these.
  • buboard 7y ago
    Where in europe? Banks are vastly different and there is no banking union. and they have failed in the past
    • TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
      There is not a “banking union” in the sense of deposit protection, but the Single Euro Payments Area means transfers between any two Eurozone banks are no different than between banks in the same country.
• IshKebab 7y ago
  There is finally some competition in banking so some of these are improving. 1. In the UK at least bank accounts are completely free, as long as you don't borrow money (you can use a credit card for free as long as you pay it off every month). 2. Not really in my experience. The worst thing they do is constantly make new types of savings accounts with decent interest rates and then sneakily drop them to 0.1% a couple of years later. 3. Hasn't been an issue for me travelling around Europe and Asia. The new breed of banks don't charge you insane fees either. E.g. check out Transferwise's debit card. 4. How would Libra solve this? 5. It's actually not too bad now - more and more online shops support 2 factor authentication for credit card purchases. Plus because of the fees merchants pay you have pretty good protection against fraud. > It feels like banks have mostly given up on making their product better. Disagree. They finally have competition: Monzo, Revolut, Starling Bank, Metro Bank, etc.
• grey-area 7y ago
  The rules are big tech companies are not allowed to compete with nation states. New currencies would supplant those of nation states and reduce their power, hence the pushback. Facebook is the last company I’d want to see dominate the coming global corporate currencies. They are unscrupulous, dishonest to the core, and willing to cheat partners and customers alike to get what they want. IMO banks rather than currencies will be the first area tech companies can push into, then payment networks, then eventually currencies as nation states wither away. There are some tech companies competing with banks and payment networks already, with some success, particularly in the UK. It will take a while for them to supplant traditional banks but I see it as inevitable and, for the reasons you point out, not too difficult, as the incumbents are sclerotic and unable to grasp the importance of software.
  • starfallg 7y ago
    >I see it as inevitable and, for the reasons you point out, not too difficult, as the incumbents are sclerotic and unable to grasp the importance of software. It's not inevitable at all. This is because (retail) banks operate more or less in the same way in their back office. The change is the front office - retail branches are being replaced with apps. But they have seen this before - with telephone and online banking. And the current generation of apps from the big banks is catching up (mainly UX). The only thing that really stands-out for the startups is the onboarding process. This is going to end in a completely different way than the retail wars, because there, it was a revolution in both the front (storefront) and back (logistics of getting the product to the customers) office.
    • grey-area 7y ago
      I know people who work at large banks, they work nothing like a tech company. Tech/IT is seen as a cost centre, often outsourced, and if not outsourced performed by disillusioned teams with neither influence nor autonomy. The back end of big banks is a huge mess of legacy systems, they had to be forced to adopt open banking, and the leadership don’t recognise that everything will be software soon. They are the antithesis of tech companies.
• leetcrew 7y ago
  > None of that has really gotten any better in the past ten years. It feels like banks have mostly given up on making their product better. Instead of improving their product, they just buy more expensive retail locations. you should check out "online" banks like Charles Schwab. they don't do any of this fancy retail bs. they've never charged me a fee (not even when I overdrew my checking account), and they reimburse me the full ATM fee whenever I use one, no matter how bad it is. the only thing they "upsell" you on is their trading platform, which is quite good imo. they have a bunch of great inhouse ETFs and it's now free to trade other stuff anyway.
• mmmBacon 7y ago
  I use a credit union. No fees. No hassle. I’ve been able to get money and pay for things using my credit union account on 5 different continents. The only exception is China where many places require Chinese credit cards. Solution: carry cash.
• CaptainZapp 7y ago
  1. They charge you fees for things Well, they provide a service and charge for that. Seems legit to me. Specifically in the context of European banks (including Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) that charge virtually nothing for basically instantaneous transfers within those countries. If US banks suck, maybe have a word with your congressperson. 2. They try to upsell me stupid financial products If so, change your bank. 3. They are not easy to use in other countries Uhh, just about any bank I know of issues an ATM card, which is either attached to the Plus, or Cirrus networks. My Swiss Postfinance ATM card work mighty fine at ATMs in Bangkok, Burundi, or Bangalore. Or just about in any damn place in the world. In other words: This reasoning is total bullshit. 4. Typing in my credit card number sucks Yeah, well. You may prefer to trust a company, which lies a lot and shuts down your account for any and all resaon, without any recourse. Let alone get hold of a real life person to rectify the issue. Frankly, I prefer the "hardship" to type my credit card number (which I know by heart anyway) than to trust Mr. Zuckerberg or Mr. Marcus. Which, in my opinion, always seem pretty much full of shit whenever they open their mouth. To each his own, I guess. 5. Typing in my credit card number isn't secure Er, not my problem. I let my bank sort that out. They're obliged to do that and whenever I had that (rare) problem it was sorted out in a jiffy. Best of luck sorting this out with just about any major tech company.
• tim333 7y ago
  > None of that has really gotten any better in the past ten years not sure which country you are in but for me, UK based Transferwise largely fixes 1-3 and Paypal 4 and 5
• bootlooped 7y ago
  To #5: My credit card issuer protects me from fraud. In the 2 or 3 cases I have had a fraudulent charge, I did not have to pay for it. I'm not sure about Libra specifically, but with many crypto currencies that would not be possible.