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Comment by r3bl | Hacker News Reader

Conspiracy theory time: Facebook knows they can't do this legally across the world. They're announcing it beforehand in an attempt to get permissions in like 10 jurisdictions tops, with a soft deadline that's going to be used as an excuse to get those permissions as soon as they can (or, at least, faster than they would otherwise).

For the other 200ish jurisdictions, they won't bother. Why act proactively when they can launch a currency, hope that it catches on, and then act re-actively once other jurisdictions with less power catch on to what's happening. Western governments will get what they want before the projects kicks off, and everyone else... well, who gives a shit about everyone else? Certainly not Facebook's shareholders.

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That’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s a proven business model.

Look at Uber, AirBnb, Lime etc. They were launched illegally in many countries.

but to play the devil's advocate, why should a service which proportedly offer a benefit to the user of that service be disallowed to be offered? If a country's citizens chose to use libra, it must be because they found it useful, and the country should not have permission to prevent it.

If it was exploitative, then presumably the users would not choose to use libra.

Oh, only non exploiting business models ever get chosen. (Taking notes.)

I think the point was more "it should be legal until some one exploits it" not that every business model should be legal.

Because citizens often make decisions that benefit them in the short term but that are catastrophic in the long term. You might be right if everyone were a perfectly rational actor with access to all relevant information, but they aren't.

But politicians that make decisions like this are more rational and have access to more information, benefiting in the long term ? Let me doubt it

No system involving human decision-making approaches perfection, but politicians and civil servants are tasked with making decisions in the collective interest on the advice of experts. In countries with strong institutions and the requisite checks and balances, they do a better job than the invisible hand of the market and the transitory utility of individual citizens. That's why most of us would rather live in Europe or the US than in Somalia or Turkmenistan.

Aren't both those places the result of policies that were purported to be better than the free market?

You are right, there are no systems that are perfect when they involve humans. However, you used two countries that are, respectively, failures of socialism and communism as an argument against the "invisible hand of the market".

I prefaced the sentence mentioning the invisible hand with "in countries with strong institutions and the requisite checks and balances" in anticipation of that objection. Collective decision-making is open to abuse, but it is possible to create institutions, traditions, and laws that limit that abuse while allowing us to enjoy the benefits of a longer-term view of the public good.

Presumably Smith's 'invisible hand' also applies to competition between economic systems. Looking at migration patterns, while people generally try and move from poor to rich countries, in cases where the economies are roughly equivalent in personal wealth, they also tend to move towards social democracies with strong safety nets. Migration between the Nordic countries and the USA tends to flow east, for instance.

That only works in a perfect world where the public makes a collective risk assesment that is accurate. In reality, that does not happen.

A single person might use Libra because it is useful for them, and one more user of Libra will not change much. However, it is difficult to assess the risks that could come with FB having control over millions of people's transactions, and then factor that in your individual decision. And that assumes that people know what can go wrong with monetary policy, which is far from reality.

To make an analogy... "If a country's citizens chose to use opioids for pain management, it must be because they found it useful, and the country should not have permission to prevent it."

> If it was exploitative, then presumably the users would not choose to use libra.

So apparently no one does meth, or gets involved in pyramid schemes, or buys ridiculous ICOs.

>If it was exploitative, then presumably the users would not choose to use libra.

Unless one actually believes in the existence of homo-economicus and also has never previously encountered a history book, I have no idea how someone would draw such a conclusion.

What's exploitative about a cryptocurrency?

About a cryptocurrency in general, nothing particularly that isn't also a property of money in general.

Specific cryptocurrencies on the other hand, well, where do I start? We could be here all day.

It's not a crypto currency in the p2p sense. It's federated, and the servers are run by the initial investors. It's world-Venmo.

1. All the interest from the reserve (which isn't all hard cash but also low risk securities) goes to the investors. No ability to create your own bank offer interest and compete.

2. Undercuts sovereignty. The HN crash may laugh but ask Yanis Varoufakis what it's like when you can't do your own monitary policy. Would you rather deal with the IMF or Facebook?

>Would you rather deal with the IMF or Facebook?

Now that is a genuine dilemma. I'd say the IMF, purely because there is enough historic data to use Bayesian inference to guide you in doing the opposite of what they advise.

edit - Better the devil you know, in other words.

Because that country might have laws stopping financial cons, as it can seriously destabilise a country.

Also, I country might have laws about equal access to financial services, which libra might not offer.

Essentially...

> Better to ask for forgiveness than for permission

Mantra/MO that they have been following since inception.

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