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Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

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Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#51

Post by wyager »

UncleMeat wrote: post #50
joshfraser wrote: post #40

There are four reasons I think decentralized marketplaces are inevitable: 1) Throughout history middlemen have suffered a common fate. They get squeezed out at every opportunity. We have a chance to cut out the rent-seeking middlemen, with revolutionary new business models that allow fees to go to ~zero. 2) Blockchain technology gives us a censorship resistance. Not only from governments that like to ban certain type…

I consider network censorship to be a feature, not a bug. I want airbnb to be able to enforce that hosts are not able to deny service to black people. I want my uber driver to have insurance and a quick background check. From the perspective of somebody in the marketplace I prefer having people who break the social contract removed. Now there can be marketplaces that screw this up and perhaps there is some place for…

> I consider network censorship to be a feature, not a bug.

No one’s going to stop you from using an unfree, censorious system if you want to. However, we’re going to object vociferously if you try to force it on everyone else.

> I want my uber driver to have insurance and a quick background check.

The advantage of censorship-resistant markets is that added features are opt-in. I don’t really care if my uber driver is regulated according to taxi union rules, so I’d rather not pay the associated costs.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#52

Post by ufo »

ThomPete wrote: post #16
empath75 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scarcity doesn’t exist because anyone can start their own blockchain and pretty much anyone who can has. There’s nothing preventing anyone from relaunching an exact duplicate of bitcoin with all of its strengths and weaknesses at any time other than inertia.

You are missing the point here. It's about the history of the individual coin not about the technical properties of coin in itself. You can build as many cryptocurrencies as you want to. They aren't bitcoin as they don't have the history of bitcoin which means that they aren't the same. Only bitcoin is bitcoin, because only bitcoins has the history they have.

Bitcoin forks like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold use the same block chain history as Bitcoin.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#53

Post by protomikron »

Ok, maybe I missed something, but can someone explain to me why a decentralized marketplace is an important thing to have?

Apart from the fact that you can pay there with Bitcoin (which you can also do at other e-commerce stores), it seems similar to Shopify from a merchant's (or vendor in OB slang) perspective.

So I get that makes it simpler to use for products that are not simple to get otherwise (e.g. drugs), because of censorship and outdated governing (I know you can in theory buy and sell anything, but I just downloaded it and searched around and most products were either tests products, or drugs and sex-related), but I don't see what other benefits there are.

I mean most people who want to sell stuff over the internet struggle with the fact that nobody wants to actually buy their stuff - the fees or monthly costs don't seem to be the reason for the failure of these shops. Furthermore I would guess most people go to a central place like Amazon, because they have some kind of reputation (although expectations are getting lower) and their support ("where's my package") is quite OK (from a customer's perspective) - although the customers could go to small indie shops and buy stuff there.

Outside of products and services that are illegal to sell or buy because of jurisdictions (if these jurisdictions make sense is an orthogonal question I would say) what is the additional benefit for buyers and sellers?

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#54

Post by adventured »

joshfraser wrote: post #40

There are four reasons I think decentralized marketplaces are inevitable: 1) Throughout history middlemen have suffered a common fate. They get squeezed out at every opportunity. We have a chance to cut out the rent-seeking middlemen, with revolutionary new business models that allow fees to go to ~zero. 2) Blockchain technology gives us a censorship resistance. Not only from governments that like to ban certain type…

Decentralized marketplaces will never become dominant because the average consumer will never trust them. They could already exist, they don't for that reason: the majority of consumers have zero interest in them.

> Throughout history middlemen have suffered a common fate. They get squeezed out at every opportunity.

Be sure to let Priceline.com know how that theory actually works in practice, versus an 85 year old industry that should have squeezed out all middlemen by now.

Google search, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Tumblr, Reddit, Snapchat, Spotify, Netflix, these are all middlemen products/companies.

eBay, Craigslist, Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Poshmark, Overstock, Alibaba, Target, Aldi, Ikea, CVS, Walgreens, the app stores, and on it goes. All middlemen stores/platforms.

Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex, PayPal, Square, Stripe, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, Ant and so on. All middlemen financial products and companies.

Your premise is exactly wrong. History says, over and over again for hundreds of years now, that middlemen thrive in every industry perpetually. What changes are the details of which ones thrive or fail at a given time.

There are zero examples of decentralized anything of scale similar to any of the giant platforms and it's not because we can't build them, people have tried over and over again to get users to use them. There's a reason for that persistent failure.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#55

Post by spynxic »

joshfraser wrote: post #40

There are four reasons I think decentralized marketplaces are inevitable: 1) Throughout history middlemen have suffered a common fate. They get squeezed out at every opportunity. We have a chance to cut out the rent-seeking middlemen, with revolutionary new business models that allow fees to go to ~zero. 2) Blockchain technology gives us a censorship resistance. Not only from governments that like to ban certain type…

> with revolutionary new business models that allow fees to go to ~zero.

Assuming fees are derived from the mining ability of the network, as more activity brings value to the network the mining fee should literally approach 0 cost.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#56

Post by astura »

joshfraser wrote: post #40

There are four reasons I think decentralized marketplaces are inevitable: 1) Throughout history middlemen have suffered a common fate. They get squeezed out at every opportunity. We have a chance to cut out the rent-seeking middlemen, with revolutionary new business models that allow fees to go to ~zero. 2) Blockchain technology gives us a censorship resistance. Not only from governments that like to ban certain type…

>Throughout history middlemen have suffered a common fate. They get squeezed out at every opportunity.

This is just... Absolute nonsense. Just factually incorrect. Middlemen, example Amazon, have never been stronger. People complain about it on HN all the time.

Anyways, people use middlemen and are happy to pay the cost because they provide a useful service. They aren't just arbitrarily injecting themselves into transactions.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#57

Post by zeptomu »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #9

A decentralized marketplace could avoid the problems with near-monopolies like Amazon because the cost overhead on transactions could be made minimal. The problem is that in order to not become the black market like OpenBazaar, the decentralized market would need to be able to comply with local and regional laws and regulation; laws and regulations which change over time. That is a tall order, and in not easily recon…

How does a decentralized marketplace make transaction fees minimal? Currently transaction fees are the hot topic and seem exorbitantly high.

I guess both customers and merchants want to buy or sell stuff and not read about things like the lightning network.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#58

Post by QAPereo »

wyager wrote: post #51
UncleMeat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider network censorship to be a feature, not a bug. I want airbnb to be able to enforce that hosts are not able to deny service to black people. I want my uber driver to have insurance and a quick background check. From the perspective of somebody in the marketplace I prefer having people who break the social contract removed. Now there can be marketplaces that screw this up and perhaps there is some place for…

> I consider network censorship to be a feature, not a bug. No one’s going to stop you from using an unfree, censorious system if you want to. However, we’re going to object vociferously if you try to force it on everyone else. > I want my uber driver to have insurance and a quick background check. The advantage of censorship-resistant markets is that added features are opt-in. I don’t really care if my uber driver i…

The average person wouldn’t even know what you were talking about, never mind actively trying to stop you from pursuing it. The only way they try to enforce anything on you is by dominating the market for a given service, and you are not going to change that.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#59

Post by dane-pgp »

UncleMeat wrote: post #50
joshfraser wrote: post #40

There are four reasons I think decentralized marketplaces are inevitable: 1) Throughout history middlemen have suffered a common fate. They get squeezed out at every opportunity. We have a chance to cut out the rent-seeking middlemen, with revolutionary new business models that allow fees to go to ~zero. 2) Blockchain technology gives us a censorship resistance. Not only from governments that like to ban certain type…

I consider network censorship to be a feature, not a bug. I want airbnb to be able to enforce that hosts are not able to deny service to black people. I want my uber driver to have insurance and a quick background check. From the perspective of somebody in the marketplace I prefer having people who break the social contract removed. Now there can be marketplaces that screw this up and perhaps there is some place for…

The feature you are looking for is not "censorship" but "reputation metrics" (in fact, they should be "uncensorable reputation metrics"). If a trusted third party (not necessarily Uber) told you whether a given driver had insurance, then your decision to transact with the driver could be based on that. (More likely, whoever made the app you use would do the "has insurance" check for you, and not show you any drivers that don't have insurance, and they would list this filtering as a feature of the app).

As for who is going to pay for this, the users can still pay money for the individual apps (perhaps they would get a commission from each ride they enable, unless a Free Software alternative emerged), and the app makers could pay a licensing fee to the third party that provides the insurance check or other reputation metric.

The real unsolved problem is how to decentralise a reputation system without it being subject to Sybil attacks or breaching people's privacy.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#60

Post by AlexCoventry »

Donzo wrote: post #41

A lot of people here have jaded views. Perhaps because they feel like they missed an opportunity. I believe that the Eth rocket is just about to launch. I recommend jumping aboard. Don’t fall for the sunk cost fallacy. Just because you started walking in the wrong direction doesn’t mean you have to keep walking in the wrong direction. Go to Coinbase.com if you reside in the US. Get in now. Go long, I do believe. You’…

> I believe that the Eth rocket is just about to launch.

Why do you believe that?

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