Why is Facebook developing “GlobalCoin”?

As users decide against seeing ads, Facebook needs a new incentive for people to keep seeing their ads

Compared to the past, where Facebook claimed that the regulations will not help solve tech companies’ major problems, Zuckerberg is now calling for more governmental regulations. A major reason behind this is that Facebook knows that regulations are inevitable and would prefer to be in the talks when they are made, so that Facebook could suggest compromises that they can handle.

Facebook hired Top State Department Lawyer, Jennifer Newstead, to help them with new regulations (source)

One of the big tasks for Facebook will be figuring out how they will survive if they are to give up their firm control on user data and give users control over how their data is dealt. Facebook will have to shift to a different business model that can still extract data about each user. Hence, why not payment?

Payment is unique in that it tells you what you find as necessary, as you have committed to give up your hard earned money for something. This also incentivizes people to seek opportunities to pay less, even if they give up their data or loyalty to a certain company in return. And what could be more important for Facebook than data and loyalty from their users?

Loyalty market will be heavily disrupted by Facebook (source)

For example, the amount of discount an advertiser provides could factor in how frequently their ad is shown to the power users on Facebook or offer a vastly larger reach more quickly so that the businesses will be incentivized to offer steeper discounts. This costs Facebook nothing, while increasing the opportunities for GlobalCoins to be spent.

Lastly, as all transactions occur on GlobalCoin, Facebook could even reward users and create a unique ecosystem, which I touched on before. If Facebook manages to dominate payment while others struggle to target their ads due to new regulations, guess where the advertisers will go?

Moreover, considering that blockchain is an immutable ledger and Facebook needs access to each transaction to ensure that no money-laundering occurs, guess who will have permanent access to all purchases?

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