There’s been a decent amount of buzz recently about Facebook potentially creating a “Facebook Credit,” or Facebook currency. We’ll call it the F$ for now. I had a great conversation with @edaz tonight about it, and it got me thinking. Our conversation focussed on things like a private group setting monetary policy, how the FBI, CIA, Interpol, and the IMF would have huge issues due to things like laundering through Facebook, how Facebook would have problems with private banks of F$ that they can’t insure (but have to quietly insure in order to keep their user-base happy), and how being able to observe a completely privatized economy (with the world’s third largest population) would be an incredible resource for economic education.
In the end, I came to a single conclusion that (I believe) really puts a Facebook currency in perspective: It’s the goal of a federal government to be just profitable enough to protect its citizens to the fullest extent possible. It’s the goal of Facebook to protect its citizens just enough to be profitable to the fullest extent possible.
