Note that Novi is the rebrand of Calibra [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2020/05/welcome-to-novi/" rel="nofollow">https://about.fb.com/news/2020/05/welcome-to-novi/</a>
> Will Novi charge fees?<p>"What you send is what they get. You can add, send, receive, and withdraw money from your wallet without worrying about hidden charges. Novi is cutting fees to help people keep more of their money."<p>What a weird evading answer. "Cutting fees"? That doesn't sound like 0.
If anyone is wondering why this is a big deal, let me explain. All major payment systems currently (PayPal, Venmo, FB Messenger, etc) are still based on government currencies. Libra is different as it is a cryptocurrency, so no government can easily control it. This might seem fine since everyone likes Bitcoin and such, but those cryptocurrencies are controlled by the community, not by a central organization. Libra is controlled by a group of major corporations and organizations, not by the community. Meaning that if those corporations decide to do something with the currency, no person or government could stop them.<p>That might not sound too bad. They own platform, so they should be able to control it, right? However, you need to consider that if someone controls the economy of a country, they control the government of that country as well. They would be able to control inflation and therefore the boom/bust cycle. If Libra is used by the majority of citizens and businesses in a country, then the group of corporations ruling Libra will be able to manipulate that country's government to do their bidding. I imagine countries with unstable governments will be the first heavy adopters of Libra and those governments are the easiest to manipulate. Libra could spawn the age of global corporatism.<p>Libra may turn out fine and improve the world, but that is only if its administration remains uncorrupted. Take a look through the list of entities that have joint control of Libra. I doubt you would trust most of them to control the world economy.<p>But this is the exact reason that Libra is controlled by a diverse group of organizations, right? I don't believe that's going to have much effect. Facebook and similar corporations already bully smaller businesses and organizations, so what prevents them from bullying or deceiving the smaller organizations in the Libra Association to vote for manipulative changes?
I’m almost certain that no country in the world wants to loose control over their currency. Especially not the US. The only thing that could happen is that they underestimate it and it becomes too big to fight it. Also, FB will probably bribe - eh, I mean - lobby some politicians. It works for Intuit :)
Maybe before we rush to adopt <Libra> we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives.
From the FAQ: "In the event of fraud, you will be eligible to receive a full refund"<p>Is that baked into Libra? Some form of reversible transactions? Or is this Facebook offering to take the risk temporarily while it gets traction?
Still think "Libra" was a badly chosen name. In (at least) spanish and portuguese languages, the word "Libra" is most of the times used to refer to the british pound. So "50 pounds" is actually literally translated to "50 Libras" in those languages.<p>So, if this thing ever takes off, there will be around 700 million people that will be calling it "Facebook Libra" and not just "Libra" in order to make the distinction. Not sure if this was what they intended in the first place, but I don't see why.
For my understanding, is it possible this could actually be a decent thing for the rest of world? Not ideal, but an improvement? Or is the argument they should just be using <cryptocurrency> ?
Sounds like PayPal, but owned by Facebook and initially peer to peer payments. I presume it's initially intended as a method of payment for Facebook Marketplace.
Is there an easy way to convert libra to bitcoin? I don’t have objection to centralised initiatives like Libra so long as people can convert cryptocurrencies easily.
> Customers are verified with a government-issued ID to protect their accounts. Learn more about security and privacy on Novi.<p>> Novi Financial, a regulated financial company, is a subsidiary of Facebook, Inc. and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.<p>That's gonna be a big fat NOPE for me.