Ask HN: How do you think Facebook can integrate blockchain into their platform? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you think Facebook can integrate blockchain into their platform?

6 pointstiuPapa6 comments

For the past few days, I have encountered quite a few folks who believe Facebook is indeed working on something blockchain related. I understand anything like this is more likely to be a baseless rumor, rather than something serious. But if Facebook were to develop a blockchain product, what do you think it would be? How can Facebook benefit from the use of a blockchain?

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How can Facebook benefit from the use of a blockchain?

The advantage of a blockchain is that it's distributed - many people verify changes, so changing it after the fact is pretty much impossible. Running a blockchain ledger with a single party in control would mean they can rerun all of the transactions and rewrite the blockchain from any given point, so there'd be no way for other people to trust it. Consequently, unless Facebook shared access to the blockchain with other people, there would be absolutely no advantage at all.

Finally someone who understand the purpose of blockchain.

Plus, they would have to get rid of all edit/delete features. Sounds like a nightmare to me. Can they create an FB coin? Sure but the use of a centralized payment system goes against blockchain...

Firstly, it's pretty common for companies to ‘investigate’ various new technologies, sometimes seemingly at random, just to see what they can “imagine to get out of” the new technology... think of it as some kind of “basic research” kind of thing (like Microsoft investigating the Halting Problem and publishing their Terminator algorithm).[0]

The obvious answer to your question is that they're looking into using it for the sake of expanding their online payment system. Sending money between users with Messenger is something I've read of (but haven't ever come across, maybe because here where I live (IT/EU) it mightn't be enabled).

The slightly more disturbing answer is that they've latched-on to some of the arm-waving about blockchain technology being the future of distributed computing (or something like that), specifically an enabler for storing one's social data in a distributed environment and therefore prospecting the idea of social graphs being distributed onto blockchain thus obsoleting their current business model, and have therefore decided to investigate this technology, see if they can somehow insinuate themselves into the role as a centralising force, and/or have decided to develop it so they can patent it and use that patent defensively to protect their current business model.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Terminator

Actually, in India, WhatsApp just received a payments option that uses India's UPI[0] for exchanging money. So I guess payment is something that facebook is interested in.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface

To quote an article that was on HN yesterday:

A company’s stance on blockchain can also serve as a test of a company’s management. In my view, companies pushing blockchain technology (e.g. IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle) are disconnected from customers’ actual needs and have mediocre management. Companies that don’t talk about blockchain (e.g. Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple) are more likely to produce sensible technology that will work in the real world.

https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/blockchain-is-a-u...

Facebook might develop a suite of blockchain technologies to sell/lease without integrating them into its social network product in the way suggested in your question. Thinking about Facebook as a software company is not entirely unreasonable.

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