Facebook, Facebook, Facebook… It was once a social media platform meant to give old friends an opportunity to reunite, but now, whenever you look up cryptocurrency news, it seems to dominate the field.
Facebook and Crypto: Still a Strange Match
The company has announced its Libra Network for the first half of 2020, which will allow users to pay for goods and services with a new cryptocurrency through any website that offers Facebook login options. The company’s recent association with Cambridge Analytica has put its reputation in jeopardy, and many people seemingly lost trust in the venture following the 2018 Senate grilling of Mark Zuckerberg.
Since then, the company has desperately tried to rid itself of the image people currently have of it, but it seems to be taking things a little too far. Recently, David Marcus – the leader of Facebook’s digital wallet division and a former executive at PayPal – stated that people who don’t seek to trust the company can easily use “competitors.” He then says that there will be “plenty of competition” out there.
This seems easygoing and straightforward at first glance. The problem is, what company would willingly say that customers should use the products of their competitors? This seems like an over-the-top maneuver to potentially divert people from associating Facebook with Cambridge Analytica. Yes, there is competition out there, but companies aren’t supposed to acknowledge it. If they want customers to stick around, they usually behave as though they’re the only venture that can satisfy their needs.
Facebook isn’t doing that. Instead, it appears to be playing a game of reverse psychology. By acting like it doesn’t care, that’s supposed to make us care, but this is an old tactic that’s relatively easy to see through. Facebook is desperate to shed its current reputation; this is understandable, but wouldn’t just reworking itself from the ground up and being completely honest with people be the best route? Something that tells us that while competition is out there, Facebook would really like us to give it a “second chance?”
Will Libra Be Very Different?
This wouldn’t be difficult for executives. In fact, the company presently has many analysts vouching for it and what it can do. Popular financial “know-it-all” and television host Jim Cramer recently had some positive things to say about Facebook, commenting that its new Libra Network and cryptocurrency will be “anti-Facebook” in that it will focus primarily on hardcore privacy settings. He comments:
It’s private. You can’t crack it. The transactions will be private and that is anti-Facebook.
That’s a huge plus, and one that users probably won’t take lightly. People are likely more forgiving than Facebook is giving them credit for, so given its current financial status and all the work it’s done to become more privacy-based, a little more direct humility might serve it better.