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Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

openbazaar.org

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Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#241

Post by thomastjeffery »

Too wrote: post #216
thomastjeffery wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we find a way to help law enforcement police at the very least the really, really bad stuff? Law enforcement was designed to protect people (or their property) from the actions of other people , not themselves . Law enforcement is fundamentally incapable of protecting people from themselves. That is why the "war on drugs" has been so ineffective. The most effective method to stop the drug (opioid, etc.) epidemi…

> Law enforcement was designed to protect people (or their property) from the actions of other people, not themselves. Not true in countries where a very large portion of the taxes I pay go to free health care and unemployment grants.

That has nothing to do with law enforcement, let alone what it was designed for.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#242

Post by deckar01 »

problems wrote: post #223
matthewbauer wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you concerned at all about legal ramifications of OpenBazaar? It seems like if you guys succeed, you're going to have to deal with lots of illegal transactions. Are you able or willing to work with law enforcement in these cases?

They have to tread very, very carefully here. I seem to remember early demo screenshots with weed as a sample product. Not exactly a good call. There's a reason all the piracy tools show things like Big Buck Bunny downloading, playing, etc. You may want the illegal uses to be present on the service - I don't blame them I like the anarchic feeling of it and the lack of regulation that is possible in the system, it's b…

Weed is actually a perfect example of the utility of this platform. The sale of recreational marijuana is legal in some US states and other parts of the world. The main hurdle for online retailers of controversial industries is the lack of support from financial institutions. The same problem can manifest itself indirectly with any service a business relies on.

If you build a commerce platform on top of old infrastructure, you will be subject to old social and moral constraints. To build a truly free commerce platform you have to start from scratch.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#243

Post by StavrosK »

jpetso wrote: post #240
StavrosK wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that mean we should also shut down casinos, for example? I don't think the answer has ever been "make it so people can't buy the stuff", because that can't work. Instead, I believe that education, quality control, and help towards addicts would work much better.

Education, quality control and help towards addicts implies the need for regulation and taxation of profits. For instance, gambling and casinos tend to be permitted but tightly controlled by law in many countries, for exactly this reason. An entirely anonymous market will have trouble enabling regulation and taxation to offset the damage done.

So legalize, tightly regulate, and tax drugs? The solution seems obvious, if it works for casinos...

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#244

Post by htormey »

deckar01 wrote: post #242
problems wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to tread very, very carefully here. I seem to remember early demo screenshots with weed as a sample product. Not exactly a good call. There's a reason all the piracy tools show things like Big Buck Bunny downloading, playing, etc. You may want the illegal uses to be present on the service - I don't blame them I like the anarchic feeling of it and the lack of regulation that is possible in the system, it's b…

Weed is actually a perfect example of the utility of this platform. The sale of recreational marijuana is legal in some US states and other parts of the world. The main hurdle for online retailers of controversial industries is the lack of support from financial institutions. The same problem can manifest itself indirectly with any service a business relies on. If you build a commerce platform on top of old infrastru…

" The sale of recreational marijuana is legal in some US states and other parts of the world. The main hurdle for online retailers of controversial industries is the lack of support from financial institutions."

The reason why many financial institutions don't accept Marijuana related clients is not because they don't want to its because they can't by law. In the USA, Marijuana is still illegal at a federal level. This is the same reason why you can't ship weed products in the post. State lines.

I have a client who's in the medical Marijuana industry so I have to deal with some issues relating to all of this.

Banks that don't cross state lines often do accept such customers (i.e credit unions).

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#245

Post by hellbanner »

tylersmith wrote: post #179
hellbanner wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello, I looked at OpenBazaar and it looks to be organized around physical goods (which is great, great job on the tool). Is there a marketplace I can use to sell digital goods and receive BTC for automatically?

We support digital goods and services as well, physical goods have just been the most popular so far. We don't have the automation nailed down quite yet so for now you still need to manually process orders.

"quite yet".. does this mean you're working on it? That's exciting!

I want to run a store like www.itch.io (DRM free games) that accepts BTC. I'm also interested in automating microtransactions for games.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#246

Post by cpacia »

hellbanner wrote: post #85

Hello, I am looking for a decentralized store that lets me: * Host digital goods (like run a server, or issue an asset ID that can be redeemed on a bittorrent style network for the file download) * Receive payment > register an asset or return a download key to the account of the user who sent it. I want automated digital good downloading, paying & receiving BTC. (Bitpay, Stripe etc pay in BTC but seller receives $Cu…

Digital goods can be sold but automation isn't going to make it into the first release. Hopefully later this year.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#247

Post by foepys »

xtracto wrote: post #239
soupbowl wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* citation needed.

Well, there are some that I know. The original is here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2436643 Then there is Neil Franklin a Maryland police officer and director of the organization "Law Enforcement Against Prohibition" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc29nw4Si3Y And his interview in the Deep Web documentary at minute 60 (it is in Netflix).

This paper doesn't directly support what you said. In the abstract it says: "With Silk Road functioning to considerable degree at the wholesale/broker market level, its virtual location should reduce violence, intimidation and territorialism."

There are 3 mentions of the word "violence", one says that the typical internet drug dealer is typically less violent than their offline counterparts but this doesn't meant that gangs will just let others take away their income because the new dealer is dealing out of a living room instead of on the street. Silk Road was B2B, as the paper mentions. But those businesses still need to get their drugs to the end user which seemingly happens on the street.

So it's an assumption, not a proven fact.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#248

Post by deckar01 »

htormey wrote: post #244
deckar01 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weed is actually a perfect example of the utility of this platform. The sale of recreational marijuana is legal in some US states and other parts of the world. The main hurdle for online retailers of controversial industries is the lack of support from financial institutions. The same problem can manifest itself indirectly with any service a business relies on. If you build a commerce platform on top of old infrastru…

" The sale of recreational marijuana is legal in some US states and other parts of the world. The main hurdle for online retailers of controversial industries is the lack of support from financial institutions." The reason why many financial institutions don't accept Marijuana related clients is not because they don't want to its because they can't by law. In the USA, Marijuana is still illegal at a federal level. Th…

Right. The current solution is to trust local services will continue to support your business's activities. That trust represents a risk that can be avoided by building on top of a decentralized infrastructure for payments and hosting.

Re: Open Bazaar – decentralized Bitcoin marketplace

#250

Post by erikb »

jpetso wrote: post #238
erikb wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but you probably agree that putting ethics above money means there's a higher risk of losing the long term game in a capitalist world.

Funnily enough, putting money over ethics also presents a high risk of losing the long term game... if your long term goal is to end up with something user-centric and ethical.

Not sure I'm getting the point. "end up with something user-centric and ethical" also implies the much simpler requirement of "end up with something".

Maybe if one implies that to "end up with something unethical" is as bad or worse than "end up with nothing"?

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