Facebook: The future is another country

Despite its giant population, Facebook is not quite a sovereign state—but it is beginning to look and act like one. If it were a physical nation, it would now be the third most populous on earth. Mr Zuckerberg is confident there will be a billion users in a few years.

 

Facebook has certainly tried to guide the development of its online economy, almost in the way that governments seek to influence economic activity in the real world, through fiscal and monetary policy. Earlier this year 2010, the firm said it wanted applications running on its platform to accept its virtual currency, known as Facebook Credits. It argued that this was in the interests of Facebook users, who would no longer have to use different online currencies for different applications. But this infuriated some developers, who resent the fact that Facebook takes a 30% cut on every transaction involving credits.

Source: Economist, Jul 22nd 2010