Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Libra, 2 Weeks In

facebook.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 287 posts

Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In

#231

Post by 2a96eb7d685a49c »

beefield wrote: post #208
Lucadg wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. This is exactly the problem with non cash transactions. Every single transaction, no matter how small, is recorded forever and shared with several governments and secret services. I never signed up for this. This is why we need cash and why they are fighting it.

The problem with cash is that it prohibits sensible monetary policy in certain situations (i.e. negative interest rates). So instead of cash we would need anonymous physical (and digital) tokens whose value is not fixed, but is adjusted according to the interest rates. I guess main problem is that to a very good approximation nobody wants these. Generally, the ones understanding monetary policy don't understand the n…

> The problem with cash is that it prohibits sensible monetary policy in certain situations

This is a feature not a bug.

Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In

#233

Post by ehnto »

api wrote: post #227
sametmax wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just privacy. Democracy in general. No cash mean you can't do anything that has not been validated by the state first. It means kids will have less options to foul around without the parents checking it. It means you won't be able to pay in a gay bar anonymously. It means any new (and hence controversial) political concept will have no way to financially grow to acceptance. It means no living off the grid. It mea…

There has never in all of history been totalitarianism like what is possible now. We are building the technical infrastructure for our own total enslavement. Of course it makes me wonder if this is just history repeating in some sense. People came to the new world in part to flee European monarchist tyrannies. Now people will go to space to flee the Earth technocracy.

How would you get to space without the help of industry, which would be controlled? Underwater is much more likely. Even on the water.

International waters have already seen a lot of creative uses to avoid governments.

Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In

#234

Post by gonational »

dymk wrote: post #143
hartator wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Know your customer is BS. It's just an excuse to invade your privacy and ask you personal questions.

And all efforts to curb money laundering, and all AML compliance laws are just to invade your personal privacy and nothing more too, right?

Yes.

The worst way to try to catch or curb money launderers is to create some kind of monetary system in which they will take no part.

Gold will not cease to exist because of a corporate “cryptocurrency”? As long as there are any fungible value stores in existence, there will be money laundering.

Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In

#235

Post by gruez »

0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #59
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does Libra claim it's transactions are non-reversible? And by reversible I mean refundable .

That’s a blockchain thing. They can fork, but they aren’t going to do that if I lose $150 in Libra. If they can single reverse transactions, there’s really no point to it being a blockchain. If it’s refundable then they are just paying for the crime itself out of their own pockets. They will still need a human layer to verify theft has occurred and it isn’t a fraudulent claim of theft where just I stole from myself.

They don't need to form the blockchain to reverse a transaction. Since they control redemption and minting, they can simply refuse to redeem from the "losing" party and mint new units to compensate the "winning" party.

>They will still need a human layer to verify theft has occurred and it isn’t a fraudulent claim of theft where just I stole from myself

Or have something similar to credit cards where you're forced into arbitration.

Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In

#236

Post by stronglikedan »

teekert wrote: post #169
IAmGraydon wrote: post #83

I'm asking this in all seriousness. Why would anyone want to use Libra? Let's say a consumer wants to buy something. They can either pay with "normal" money in one step or they can use their phone to convert their money into Libra and then make the purchase with Libra. Why would they go through the extra step(s)? Am I to believe that the benefit is "lower transaction fees"? Because if so, Libra doesn't have a chance.…

In the Netherlands (or the EU) banking is sort of changing, we have some Fintech companies moving into the space (bunq, revolut, N26). I'm a customer at bunq and they are a breath of fresh air, I can: * Have 25 separated accounts or savings goals * Share any bank account (or savings goal) with anyone (using bunq) * On the fly couple my passes to any of the accounts * Use NFC on my Android phone to pay * Have a websit…

That's all well and good, but can you also anonymously buy some blow with cash when you want to party?

Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In

#238

Post by ehnto »

democracy wrote: post #170
spaced-out wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are millions of people around the world that are unbanked. Especially in 3rd world countries, they get on the internet by buying the cheapest possible smartphone and data with cash. I was just in the Philippines, and I saw places selling access to only Facebook and WhatsApp, in increments of 30MB of data, for cash. The problem for Facebook is that these people can't buy anything online, because they don't have…

The fact that they don't have a "bank account" in a traditional sense doesn't mean that they can't do what they want to do - transfer money to each other and make purchases using other means. The "bank the unbanked" idea that crypto-shills like so much only works for people who know nothing about these "3rd world countries".

They can't buy online, and so no one is advertising to them yet they are heavily using the Facebook platform. Facebook is trying to recruit them into the online marketplace by giving them a seamless way to spend internationally online, so that advertisers will buy more ads.

Whether or not it will work I have no idea, I don't know the markets that well. But their motives are transparent, the rest of the spiel is just "change the world" drum beating and cleaning the dialogue.

Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In

#239

Post by Proven »

From the Fab post:

> Someone wrote that the key reason people are unbanked is that they don’t have enough money to actually be banked, and claimed Libra wouldn’t solve this.

Lol, who was that moron? MMT to rescue!

Re: Libra, 2 Weeks In

#240

Post by gruez »

richrichardsson wrote: post #199
School-Cotton wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Libra launches successfully and remains stable, those same places selling X MB of data for cash, could easily start selling Libra too. Why couldn’t they sell prepaid Visa cards, or Venmo/PayPal (or whatever is the local equivalent) top-ups? I get that having access to brokers that will sell a globally recognized hard currency for local cash is super useful, especially if it’s in electronic form. I don’t get why…

I tried using a pre-paid card to buy something online a few years back: it didn't work, was specifically declined for being a pre-paid card (I don't recall what it was I was trying to purchase, but perhaps that may have some bearing on why it was declined if the reason was they don't want to sell certain things to potentially anonymous persons).

I've never had prepaid cards declined for physical items. Abusable SaaS (hosting, email sending, telephone gateways) is another story.
Post reply on HN