Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you have merged PRs allowing use via Tor, you seem to be tacitly encouraging Open Bazaar to be used by those who want to hide their identity. In the wake of the recent darknet market closures, people have been saying that the drug trade might move to decentralized markets like this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14828864 As facilitators of this technology, do you have an opinion on how it should be used?…
Keep in mind that OpenBazaar has been used for over a year now, and only a small minority of the trade has been illicit. Most people just want a platform where they can buy / sell in crypto and avoid marketplace fees. We built OpenBazaar to be an agnostic protocol for trade online. It's like any other protocol in that it's neutral, and people can use it how they please. I don't like the idea of people using it for im…
https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenBazaar/comments/6oifak/is_it_po...
"Well if the devs want massive adoption and 2.0 is functional then getting it to work on tails in the next 3 months will get them that."
"If someone would post an eli18 walkthrough on how to config tails so that OB 2.0 will work when that comes out that'd be great."
https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenBazaar/comments/6opqii/i_read_s...
"It's actually about to enter the alpha testing phase. Tor is working with some manual steps. You can test out a week-old build here."
The situation appears to be that OpenBazaar has been used for a year for mostly legal trade due to the technical hurdles of using Open Bazaar with identity-hiding software like Tor and Tails. In fact, OpenBazaar does not work at all on Tails, though work is ongoing to promote this use case (https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenBazaar/comments/6oifak/is_it_po...) and a release with Tor support is scheduled for August.
In fact, most of the recent activity on the OpenBazaar subreddit has been questions about exactly that: sale of illegal substances. https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenBazaar/comments/6oigt2/so_i_hea...
It feels like Open Bazaar is poised to become the next Silk Road. The keystone to achieve that is Tor support plus a Tails walkthrough guide. Both of these seem to be on the verge of being released.
I just wanted to clarify for onlookers that the Open Bazaar team seems to be going into this with both eyes open.
Developing a protocol is one thing. Going out of your way to enable anonymity as a means of acquiring users is a very interesting tactic. It's doubly interesting to repeatedly claim that Open Bazaar was not developed as a darknet market and "may not work for that use case" while also accepting merge requests for Tor support and eventually providing binaries that will work on Tails.
According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14829076 OB has taken $4M of investment. Perhaps investors are pushing you to acquire users. The DarkNet market crowd is certainly a large target market. Or perhaps all of your intentions are as transparent as you claim, and you're innocently laying the foundation to become the next Silk Road -- an unstoppable decentralized market accountable to no one.