What about privacy? Most of these Internet giants make money hoarding user data; will Libra open up a new dataset to collect and monetize for these companies? Will Libra transaction data be more thorough than what they're currently able to get from 3rd parties?
Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
21–30 of 313 posts
Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#22I too dismissed Libra out of hand, but the coalition that Facebook is building is interesting. People say that "Fintech threatens the banks" but almost all Fintech companies partner with the banks in one way or another. Look at the companies involved with Libra and see that none of them are banks. Libra will still have a lot of money on deposit with the banks, but it might be the first Fintech that will really bypass…
Are they beating PayPal by the length of that list?
PayPal is in that list.
Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#23Could the problem with the damaged brand be a reason why Apple is so keen on becoming a "privacy-as-a-service"-company?
Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#24I can't help but think that Facebook doomed this "distributed ledger" possibility by trying to be first to market with a tarnished brand. The developing world would hugely benefit from a scalable technology that can efficiently service digital transactions. The piece demonstrates this with how quickly WeChat Pay and Alipay penetrated China. I can't imagine the possibility for prosperity when 3 billion consumers enter…
I was thinking the same thing. Either the product managers or the PR people are tone deaf (or why not both?). I once saw a PR person talk about how you had to earn your way to allow yourself to be part of certain larger societal conversations. Start at grass roots, earn trust there, step up to communities, earn trust there, step up to local governments etc etc. Being big doesn't earn you anything out the gate. I like…
I think the real PR disaster will come when FB tries to "square the circle" and explains exactly how they are gonna keep people's Libra transactions fully isolated through the Colibra foundation while simultaneously allowing every FB app to have a built-in Libra wallet... I can't wait to hear the mental gymnastics that will be required to continue to uphold that claim.
Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not entirely free: those companies are paying $10M to run a Libra node. That's still pocket change as a hedge in case it actually takes off. So maybe they're happy to shut up for now, let Zuck take the regulatory flack, and if it seems like Libra will take off on FB's efforts, they're positioned to benefit from adoption.
> those companies are paying $10M to run a Libra node Please show me a citation of where is says concretely that Visa/Uber/etc have handed $10M to this project. The Libra project so far is just wishful thinking about things that maybe, might possibly happen sometime.
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Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#26What would the advantage be in using Libra over a online wallet(PayPal, etc). It doesn’t have the anonymous nature of Cryptocurrency or its volatility. It’s backed by a currency, and they will still charge a fee, so why use it?
EDIT: I realize that some people might not be able to get bank accounts, and know that makes more sense, but what other reasons are there?
Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#27I can't help but think that Facebook doomed this "distributed ledger" possibility by trying to be first to market with a tarnished brand. The developing world would hugely benefit from a scalable technology that can efficiently service digital transactions. The piece demonstrates this with how quickly WeChat Pay and Alipay penetrated China. I can't imagine the possibility for prosperity when 3 billion consumers enter…
The developing world doesn’t care about the reputation Facebook has on HN.
Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#28What about privacy? Most of these Internet giants make money hoarding user data; will Libra open up a new dataset to collect and monetize for these companies? Will Libra transaction data be more thorough than what they're currently able to get from 3rd parties?
No worries, they're just gonna take a pic of your government ID and fingerprints for KYC requirements which are securely isolated in a vault in Switzerland where they will remain 100% safe, except in that rare instance where you need to buy a cup of coffee, and they therefore need to inspect all your records to make sure you're not funding terrorism. /s
Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#29But what about Privacy and Security which we should concern.
Re: Facebook, Libra, and the Long Game
#30I can't help but think that Facebook doomed this "distributed ledger" possibility by trying to be first to market with a tarnished brand. The developing world would hugely benefit from a scalable technology that can efficiently service digital transactions. The piece demonstrates this with how quickly WeChat Pay and Alipay penetrated China. I can't imagine the possibility for prosperity when 3 billion consumers enter…
> The developing world would hugely benefit from a scalable technology that can efficiently service digital transactions. The piece demonstrates this with how quickly WeChat Pay and Alipay penetrated China.
I hear this a lot in cryptocurrency threads, and I vehemently disagree. There's no doubt that using "some other currency" (currency or cryptocurrency) is better than using a corrupt, authoritarian regime's currency. But there's also no doubt that being able to execute monetary policy is a huge advantage for any country. Read anything about currency manipulation or currency markets. Not being able to control the supply of currency your goods (or others' goods, i.e. petrodollars) are valued in is a huge disadvantage.
It feels like there's a huge political push to try and get the "developing world" (with all the hand-waving that's been applied to this term) onto cryptocurrencies, but that permanently puts them at a disadvantage compared to countries that can manipulate their own currency. I think selling this is short-term-ism at its worst.
And honestly? It's also vaguely colonial. I would love to hear from people in these countries what they think about cryptocurrencies, if anything. Cryptocurrency advocates saying, "we know what's best for you" is super troubling to me.