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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?

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.
  - bobbyd3 7y ago
    ^ this
- Slartie 7y ago
  Then choose "the better product" among the myriad of banking accounts from the myriad of competing banks out there. Your problems are all problems related to bank accounts, not to the currency that gets stored in those accounts, so there is no reason at all to cry for competition on the currency level.
robot 7y ago
this sums up so many things wrong with capitalism in general. you get charged for stuff the moment you get to have no other choice. healthcare being the worst case.
buboard 7y ago
While there are not many Facebooks, there are thousands of cryptocurrencies. As long as Libra is exchangeable , i dont see how they can maintain a stronghold on their users and manipulate them. It's not as if the entire world has adopted libra, its going to be a long drawn and selective process in which businesses decide which cryptocurrencies to support. People don't change their friend's networks, but they re not equally selective with money, they 'll use whats convenient and good.But Libra is probably going to be the biggest onramp of them .
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Size matters, particularly when it's a multinational behemoth with a strong track record of manipulating their users. Thank heavens regulators appear as disturbed as I am with the idea. Here's the issue, well my issue. I've read more than enough history to know what happens with company currency or scrip. It doesn't have to be the mining town paying the miner in mining dollars to use at a variable rate solely at the overpriced mining store, valid only whilst they work at the mine and don't upset the foreman or his wife. Each step and use gave opportunity, gladly taken, for the mine to extract more profit. Currency regulators permit local dollars and pounds which are an attempt to keep money in a local economy. Their constraint is fair to both the public and the market, they are purely parallel to cash, and they are tiny enough not to matter - crucially there is no profit in and of themselves. A "local California dollar" might well deservedly get a different reaction. With Libra, well it's not hard to create a Company Scrip 2.0 scenario. In fact it's disturbingly easy. Actually, to imagine dozens upon dozens of them. Then a few dozen more purely because it's supra-national. Then a few dozen more because they are large enough to squeeze out cash without needing to be a remote company town. Yeah actually I want regulators to squish that before birth, with extreme malice. Just one example: Facebook and Ford do a deal for FB advertising and a bit of personal data swapping, in return for Ford F150s, or maybe just a particular model to start, solely being available for Libra. You want that Ford truck, well convert some dollars into Libra. You don't see how it's disturbingly easy to create an inevitable and easily manipulated stronghold down that route? What about if the local supermarket does the same deal? Breach the licence, well you're not shopping in these stores... Even stealing universal currencies, such as dollars, does not remove your future use of or right to use dollars. Only the stolen loot is taken from you. I'm perfectly comfortable with the anarchistic cryptocurrencies such as BTC as there is no threat to the universality of exchange, even if it did take off more than BTC yet has. Even though BTC's main use seems as medium of speculation until the bubble bursts. They can reasonably be a currency. Libra feels more universality of control than of exchange. A currency as product - that's inherently a bad thing, as I wrote in my other reply. Even if the company is not Facebook but is behind the crypto currency alone, with a built in route to profit just by the "currency" existing. That's diametrically opposed to the needs of a currency - a universal token of exchange and legal tender. It rather removes the ability to be a currency. It should not be a product in and of itself. I expect, and pray, that regulators will erase any that have chance of becoming widespread enough to be real alternative currency beyond speculative toy. Otherwise everyone except shareholders is worse off. Now a central bank backing a cryptocurrency - held as universal and legal tender - that's an entirely different, and interesting thing.

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.
- bobbyd3 7y ago
  ^ this
Slartie 7y ago
Then choose "the better product" among the myriad of banking accounts from the myriad of competing banks out there. Your problems are all problems related to bank accounts, not to the currency that gets stored in those accounts, so there is no reason at all to cry for competition on the currency level.

robot 7y ago

this sums up so many things wrong with capitalism in general. you get charged for stuff the moment you get to have no other choice. healthcare being the worst case.

buboard 7y ago

While there are not many Facebooks, there are thousands of cryptocurrencies. As long as Libra is exchangeable , i dont see how they can maintain a stronghold on their users and manipulate them. It's not as if the entire world has adopted libra, its going to be a long drawn and selective process in which businesses decide which cryptocurrencies to support. People don't change their friend's networks, but they re not equally selective with money, they 'll use whats convenient and good.But Libra is probably going to be the biggest onramp of them .

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Size matters, particularly when it's a multinational behemoth with a strong track record of manipulating their users. Thank heavens regulators appear as disturbed as I am with the idea. Here's the issue, well my issue. I've read more than enough history to know what happens with company currency or scrip. It doesn't have to be the mining town paying the miner in mining dollars to use at a variable rate solely at the overpriced mining store, valid only whilst they work at the mine and don't upset the foreman or his wife. Each step and use gave opportunity, gladly taken, for the mine to extract more profit. Currency regulators permit local dollars and pounds which are an attempt to keep money in a local economy. Their constraint is fair to both the public and the market, they are purely parallel to cash, and they are tiny enough not to matter - crucially there is no profit in and of themselves. A "local California dollar" might well deservedly get a different reaction. With Libra, well it's not hard to create a Company Scrip 2.0 scenario. In fact it's disturbingly easy. Actually, to imagine dozens upon dozens of them. Then a few dozen more purely because it's supra-national. Then a few dozen more because they are large enough to squeeze out cash without needing to be a remote company town. Yeah actually I want regulators to squish that before birth, with extreme malice. Just one example: Facebook and Ford do a deal for FB advertising and a bit of personal data swapping, in return for Ford F150s, or maybe just a particular model to start, solely being available for Libra. You want that Ford truck, well convert some dollars into Libra. You don't see how it's disturbingly easy to create an inevitable and easily manipulated stronghold down that route? What about if the local supermarket does the same deal? Breach the licence, well you're not shopping in these stores... Even stealing universal currencies, such as dollars, does not remove your future use of or right to use dollars. Only the stolen loot is taken from you. I'm perfectly comfortable with the anarchistic cryptocurrencies such as BTC as there is no threat to the universality of exchange, even if it did take off more than BTC yet has. Even though BTC's main use seems as medium of speculation until the bubble bursts. They can reasonably be a currency. Libra feels more universality of control than of exchange. A currency as product - that's inherently a bad thing, as I wrote in my other reply. Even if the company is not Facebook but is behind the crypto currency alone, with a built in route to profit just by the "currency" existing. That's diametrically opposed to the needs of a currency - a universal token of exchange and legal tender. It rather removes the ability to be a currency. It should not be a product in and of itself. I expect, and pray, that regulators will erase any that have chance of becoming widespread enough to be real alternative currency beyond speculative toy. Otherwise everyone except shareholders is worse off. Now a central bank backing a cryptocurrency - held as universal and legal tender - that's an entirely different, and interesting thing.