Why would anyone want a facebook coin that is completely controlled by Facebook which can be controlled by the government when with Bitcoin you get complete sovereignty?
Because not everyone cares about "complete sovereignty"? There's a reason why all these companies are still successful, most people don't care that much about their privacy or other dignities if it means convenience.
If your national government cares at all about sovereignty, it will force you to use bitcoin by rule of law / force. Countries like Venezuela, Turkey, and Argentina with struggling currencies are under the mercy of the US petrodollar. A move to BTC would end their hyper inflation.
Most people are too self centered to realize the political/ economical implications of BTC. The most likely case will be that nothing changes in our day to day, except that our currency is now backed by BTC instead of US debt.
Facebook is trying to create a common currency accessible to a global userbase whose transmission bypasses traditional banking rails. It'll be super convenient, even the USD can't do that.
This combined with Whatsapp for Business is going to be game changing for SMEs in developing markets.
Do I want to keep my savings in it? Probably not...
It might be a great project, it just has very little to do with actual cryptocurrencies. It's great to be excited about it, the issue many people in this thread have the project being called a cryptocurrency.
I don't see Facebook allowing that. This is going to be a locked-down, siloed currency that can only be purchased with a Facebook account and real currency, with the consortium members taking a cut.
