You know with this being a privacy conscious fed, and Shitbook's libra coming out, it's never been a scarier time.
If libra comes out which Shitbook is saying it will and soon and it gains critical mass adoption, the world of privacy is going to more important than ever.
🔏🌎
@mister_monster I wish I could believe that'll backfire but there's way to many people in Shitbook that'll just use it without question.
😬
@Wetrix It isn't that it will backfire. Plenty of people *will* use it. Just like plenty of people use FB itself. But people can use more than one thing. Any useful UX decisions with Libra will be adopted in the cryptocurrency world, and as soon as someone has a transaction reversed they'll discover real cryptocurrency. Just like many people use the fediverse and Twitter/FB. And the trend will be towards free networks because it has to be, nothing else is sustainable.
@mister_monster I sure hope so.
Decentralized all the way that's for sure! And open source!
People can't be trusted with power and money so just take them out of the equation altogether 👍🏻
@mister_monster
Libra is already on very bumpy road, those bumps are regulations by the government and overall bad privacy reputation by Facebook. Also, any country that don't want to give any financial power to Facebook (which imo is every country in the world besides maybe US) will simply make that way of payment illegal. Their model is bad, and as such it can't succeed, regulators see that.
@Wetrix
@nikolal @mister_monster I sure hope your right!!! 🙏🏻
@Wetrix @nikolal Well it kind of has to be. For profit silo "networks" cannot sustain themselves because they must break UX for monetization reasons. A network like Mastodon can live indefinitely with 2 users and still be useful because there's no pressure to be profitable. The long term trend will be towards tools that work for the people that use them because thats what people will gravitate towards in the long run. This applies to currency and social networks and anything really. Look at AOL.
@Wetrix @nikolal The great thing about social networks is the network effect. Money is social in nature as well. The network effect may work against these FOSS protocols in the short run, but once critical mass is reached (~10% of people who use FB/libra use AP/bitcoin) people who don't care about privacy or FOSS start to use them just because their friends do.
@nikolal @Wetrix Yup. But corporate money is nothing new in this world. Company stores were a big thing in the US for a long time. The obstacle that corporate money faces is that corporations are legal entities that exist solely within the scope of government regulatory framework. They are always susceptible to government regulation. Cryptocurrency does not have that obstacle to overcome. At the end of the day, the user can ignore laws and the protocol doesn't care if they do or not.
@mister_monster
It does matter when you can't turn Libra into fiat, Facebook plans to implement official Libra banks and I don't think that any country will accept that beside US. It is cryptocurency, but it is problem when the flow of money is stopped, when you can't turn Libra into fiat and vice versa becouse of regulation of country you live in, thats a huge problem.
@Wetrix
@nikolal You can expect their plans to change to the whim of governments based on the profitability of the approach. They won't launch a product that will tank, they will adapt it to maximize the number of people who use it so they can make money, just like they do with FB. If they can't get users in a country with a Libra bank they will turn off that feature in that country. The fact that anyone can do this shows you that this isn't actual money, it is a financial service.
@Wetrix
@mister_monster
Not quite service, it would be service when their model gives you correct amount of issued Libra tokens for given fiat. They can print how much they want and government cant control that, I see this as huge problem.
@Wetrix
@nikolal That is not exactly true. Libra is going to be backed by a "basket of currencies", similar to World Bank SDRs. In the US, asset backed securities must be compliant or they face massive fines. I do not expect them to print Libra without purchasing the backing because they know that if they do they will get shut down by the FEC in the US. You might be able to get away with this with an ERC20 ICO on Ethereum, but a corporate structure cannot avoid the law, they exist in law only.
@Wetrix
@mister_monster
Maybe, we will see how will this play out. I'm sceptical, but I've been wrong before.
@Wetrix
@nikolal All I am really saying is that Libra will not be the first corporate money, and it will continue to exist in whatever form it can legally exist in. It will even have a significant user base. But it cannot take the place of open money because it cannot serve all the needs of all the people like open money can.
@Wetrix
@mister_monster
Agreed, but their plan is to make it global money. I belive that cryptocurrencies will take over fiat sooner or later, will it be Libra or some union of countries crypto replacement for USD or EU, or even existing cryptocurrencies we will see. Its very hard to predict how will everything play out.
@Wetrix
@nikolal I am with you on cryptocurrencies becoming the dominant money. But I do not see nation states adopting them. The main power that most nation states have is currency creation. I believe we are entering a world where state governments will be as important to people as the company they work for, and that individuals rather than states will dominate global finance. Corporate money will play a role in that, but i think open currencies will be much more important. We shall see.
@Wetrix
@mister_monster @nikolal the government's of the world simply won't allow individuals to have that much power.
They'll just ban it if they have to and devalue it so much it'll become worthless because it won't be usable anywhere.
@Wetrix They cannot stop it. It is like gunpowder. The pandora's box has been opened.
@nikolal @mister_monster it will I believe to, but it won't be libra or any coarperation's crypto, the government's simply won't let it happen.
@mister_monster
My point is that Libra won't be accepted in other countries besides US (even in US maybe), why whould Russians and Chinese and rest of whole world give such power to US based corporation? Not very likely imo
@Wetrix
@nikolal Yup, China will probably implement a currency in WeChat or AliPay or something else, they already give preference to Chinese products like this. Russia does this as well to some degree. In the US if FB continues to exist under current regulations and they abide the financial services regulations they can do it, nothing is stopping them. I do expect some changes to how FB is regulated in the US before the Libra launch, but it might not be an obstacle to Libra itself.
@Wetrix Libra is going to do what AOL did: help people discover the real internet but with money.
Privacy consciousness is already popular enough that everyone has at least one friend that doesn't use FB and the like. Critical mass for an exodus is around the corner. As long as people can use more than one network at a time the trend towards open software will continue. It cannot be stopped.