Ask HN: Would you use new Facebook cryptocurrency Libra? - ciccionamente
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deusofnull
No, definitely not going to be using these new 'zuck bucks'.

I think services like venmo or cashapp are fine, and also i dont particularly
see a need for it to be a cyrptocurrency.

tbh, i think all of this could be a publicity / marketing effort at its core.
Especially considering that Reps from congress asking facebook to "pause"
development on it. It should be pretty obvious that Fed regulators arent gonna
be super into the idea of facebook creating its own trans-national currency,
and not difficult to imagine the hammer falling hard on facebook.

Also, the whole thing feels oddly.... post-peak-cyrptocurrency-hype... Like it
would make way more sense if Fb came out with this in 2016/17, right after
that big bitcoin peak, and right before FB started getting a lot of shit for
all the 2016 election / fake news / "russiagate" stuff.

But no, hell no, I won't be using zuck bucks.

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cujic9
I'd be interested to hear responses from among the 1.X billion unbanked people
in developing countries.

I think the goal of Libra is to turn this population into sticky Facebook
users. Facebook has saturated the developed world. Meanwhile, developing
countries are too busy surviving to mess around on social media.

Libra gives them a way to transact in a stable currency, and Facebook starts
to discover the currently grassroots social graph of small time farmers and
craftsmen selling goods to their neighbors in villages with slow internet
access.

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viraptor
Unlikely. For non-trivial spending there are already multiple companies doing
money transfers and my airline payment card doesn't carry extra fees. I don't
do any small value transfers, so there's just no use case for me.

But I'm happy that they will motivate existing banks / cc providers to give
better conditions. Kind of like Uber is a globally a bad idea, but they did
force many taxi companies to raise quality.

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el_dev_hell
> Kind of like Uber is a globally a bad idea, but they did force many taxi
> companies to raise quality.

What do you mean by this? Are you saying Uber is bad because it's disruptive
to Taxi companies or because they're terrible to drivers?

The claim that Uber is a bad idea globally, especially somewhere like Brazil
or Mexico, is laughable. Catching a cab in Buenos Aires was an actual risk to
your life. Catching an Uber is many times safer (not to mention cleaner and
more convenient).

I guess I'm just missing the obviousness of Uber being a bad idea. What do you
mean exactly?

~~~
viraptor
Uber has investors' cash which it will throw at the business to keep the price
low for customers while paying drivers just enough to not quit. This will
change once they need to be profitable and/or once competition is gone. Then
it's going to be worse for both the drivers and riders.

Other cabs were terrible though as you noted. I don't know about LA regions,
but in some countries in Europe a better service from Uber actually forced the
local taxi companies to raise the service quality - which is a welcome result.

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smartis2812
I'm pretty unsure. I mean there are a lot's of trust issues with Facebook and
even if the promise to keep there hands out of this, i don't believe them. On
the other hand, a fast border less money transaction with good integration
sounds promising. And Facebook has the resources for it.

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tannhaeuser
No, but I would push for central banks/politicians to wake up and establish
usable digital currencies and payment as part of the general market
infrastructure of the 21st century.

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dbm44
No, don't trust Facebook after all the on going privacy news. Certainly
wouldn't trust them with my money.

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zoobab
Or call for a yearly Facebank run to stress the system!

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zoobab
No to Facebank!

