Facebook Coin? Not A Question Of "If", But More Like "When And How"
A couple of days ago, Mark Zuckerberg posted on his Facebook wall a very interesting message, which was mostly about this new year resolutions. I selected below only the part that's relevant to this article:
The red rectangle above is key, in my opinion.
First, because whatever message Mark Zuckerber puts out, it gets into the feeds of hundreds of million of people. At this exposure, everything is carefully crafted, this isn't your usual hangover texting after New Year's party. There is a message that has to get across.
Second, because Facebook has a long - and consistent - history of getting what they want, when they want and however the fuck they want. Few people remember now there was a competition between Yahoo Messenger and Facebook Chat. Well, not anymore. Messenger is the only one around. Also, Mark wanted to buy Snapchat a few years back, got a "No!", so he implemented a Snapchat-on-demand in Facebook (stories). More recently, Facebook Marketplace is clearly aiming at Craigslist type of content. And the list may go on and on.
So, for me, this year message is very clear: "We saw that crypto thing is taking off, so we're gonna get into it."
Period.
While this is kind of a big news, it is also very challenging. And, for once, it won't be challenging for us, but for Mark.
Let me tell you why.
Facebook's business model is based on selling users data to advertisers. And what makes it valuable is the fact that it is opaque. Nobody else knows how that data is generated and aggregated, except Facebook.
If they will "tokenize" Facebook, they have roughly two options:
- a decentralized token, tradeable outside of Facebook ecosystem (like STEEM)
- a centralized token (basically, a glorified loyalty points system) pertinent only inside the Facebook ecosystem
The first one will literally break Facebook into pieces. Each token will be the equivalent of a mega-liquid Facebook share and pretty much everybody and their mother will jump on it. At over 1 billion instant users, trading an "airdropped" Facebook coin all at once, the ecosystem will simply implode. The magnitude of a 1 billion people decentralized system is simply too big to be contained. Zuckerberg will lose control (as he astutely points out as a "challenge" in his message) and I think he doesn't want to lose control.
So there is only the second option. While they may try to bank on the crypto / blockchain hype by touting it as "decentralized", it won't be. There will be loads of filters and probably the only use of the token will be to be spent for buying "wall exposure" - by companies, or "UI gimmicks" for end users. Facebook will add an extra metric to the data they'll sell to advertisers, namely "consumption habits"- or how people spend this coin inside Facebook - and they will stick with what they know "it works".
Alas, by the time they'll implement it, a decentralized alternative model may already be too strong. Because it's not the token value per se that makes a coin precious, but the whole ecosystem it backs up, with governance rules being the most important.
And, in that respect, Facebook is still much like a dictatorship, instead of a democracy. Even a "proxied" democracy, like DPoS is, is way better than a dictatorship, but I doubt Facebook will foster enough vision and logistic capacity to implement something like this.
So, yes, we may soon see some sort of a Facebook coin, but it might be just a glorified voucher.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
If there is a facebook coin, facebook will make many government angry, as many government hate crypocurrency which of coz mark will not want to do it.
Any sort of effort by Facebook to implement a token will have either of those end results that you astutely pointed out. What I'm concerned about is that it's going to distort any sort of understanding of crypto by all the people that would be using these tokens on FB. As it is, people generally don't have a good understanding of how blockchains and crypto work (my own knowledge is, admittedly, more limited than it should be), and while this would encourage people to get out there and learn, I think they'd come at it from the wrong perspective.
Gonna cause way more problems if Zuckerburg goes through with it.
@dragosroua NO and HELL NO !!! Zuckerberg can just STICK IT, I don't want any part of his FANTASY Orwellian Token..........
It's not necessarily HE what makes it Orwellian. It's the guys for who he sells all that data he generates
I do not see also how facebook could turn a decentralized model to its favor. They have been working for years to learn how to sell its users data to their clients and now it can't in few months trash that an open its borders to become a marketplace of some other sort "which no one could predict" ..I do not see where the surprise could come from. Fun to wait and see anyways. Great article !
But what if................
what if it is NOT Facebook. What if he builds something NEW!
There is nothing limiting him to only having Facebook. If he was to build something new that WAS decentralised and worked a bit like Steemit, what would that do for this space?
There would be competition, which would drive innovation. So in that respect I think this could be a good thing - for Steemit.
s.o.b... Zucky must have had his ego bruised when Chris Larsen zipped by his ass for new ultra mega billionaire. FB is for grannies Zucky ! (-:
I was a bit concerned that facebook could pose a real threat to the steem ecosystem but I see they are either a bit late or going the wrong way. My sleep thanks you :)
you have nicely explained why it is gonna be hard for the facebook to have this.."Facebook is still much like a dictatorship, instead of a democracy. "
this explains most of it..thanks for sharing this with us :)
I doubt it. If Facebook was going to award loyalty points of some sort to its users, it would have done so well before Blockchain. Adding a crypto-aspect to an already useless feature won't make it more appealing to anybody. Facebook is either going to be offering a coin in a new and unique way that we won't be able to predict, or they'll be operating in a space that won't be directly customer facing.
Might be. It's all speculation at this point, so everything goes.
they can buy any company they want but they can buy the decentralised force with them ;) mark gotta try hard this time