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Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

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Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#91
post #72
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’…

Right, a decentralized marketplace is also going to have the customer service and delivery speed of Amazon too. Because blockchain...

Dang, you hit that straw man hard. Easy.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#92
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can a blockchain like steem be used to solve the reputation problem?

Blockchains propose a flawed solution to a specific problem. The issue that cryptocurrencies and friends are having at the moment is that there's a lot of other unsolved problems standing in the way of what they're trying to do, and those are difficult problems.

Which is to say, the question "Can a blockchain be used to solve [X]?" is answered "No" for almost every question.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#93
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which anyone can clone as easy as git clone github:ethereum/geth Having your own private platform with smart contracts and everything. Not congested with cryptokitties and etherdelta.

Yup. Then you'll have a clone of the real deal.

Your idea got me thinking. Maybe we could clone other open source software. Do you think we could get away with it?

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#94
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We can redistribute value to the people who actually contribute the most value in the network. Actually that is how I envision people becoming self-reliant in a post-job society. Being jobless and with little money means you got: 1. free time, and 2. needs to fulfil. But jobless people are not without skills - we don't suddenly forget everything we learned when we lose our jobs. There's plenty of skilled people wit…

How is the human coin different from existing currency? They are both store of value so a person can still exchange for goods and services when he or she doesn’t have things that the other party wants? I don’t see how the human coin can be more efficient and easier to use than standard currency, especially for local transactions.

Human-coin should represent proof of HUMAN WORK, not of crypto work. That's how it is different. It scales with population and is linked to people.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#95
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're underestimating how truly small and how early the space is still. What the heck are you talking about!? Kodak, the former camera company, announced at CES they were going to be selling cloud miners and have their own cryptocoin. Juice companies are announcing blockchain projects. People you run into at grocery stores are randomly bringing up bitcoin... This is as big as bitcoin gets. And when it pops…

"When it pops" I hear that a lot. Many tokens have a floor, which is the actual value of the tokenized assets. Filecoin's floor is the cost/demand for actual hard drive space. Tickets to artist concerts tokenized would have a floor. Our token (Intercoin.org) has a floor represented by actual economies of communities. Bitcoin on the other hand, has no floor. Just like Myspace vs Facebook or AltaVista vs Google, people…

> Filecoin's floor is the cost/demand for actual hard drive space.

I suppose that DentaCoin’s floor is the value of dentistry? What happens to its value if people decide they prefer ToothCoin? Or that dollars work for all of these things because fungability matters and you’ve got to pay taxes?

Imagining a significant portion of the economy using something like Monero is already a stretch, but there is no evidence that a separate currency for every product or service we want to interact with is a viable idea.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#96
post #77
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view what you are saying is a libertarian pipe dream. A fully decentralized world (mostly I mean web) will be a nightmare. People are already mad how Reddit/Twitter are so abusive as platforms. And these are still centralized systems, albeit more free compared to Facebook/Instagram. Just imagine the kind of hate, racism, nazism, *-ism that will be unleashed in a fully decentralized system. We are already compla…

There's a simple solution: Filter out what you (or your community) don't want to see, but don't force your sensibilities on everyone else.

The solution that, in my opinion, works better for society is not surrounding yourself in a nice cushy filterbubble where your views are never challenged, but instead becoming more tolerant of contrarian opinions.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#97

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…

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…

This only shift the responsibility. Now those with the authority to provide a good reputation decide who gets to sell their goods. For example you would probably have a problem with dangerous electronics in a decentralized market. Only experts can tell you whether the USB charger you're looking at is safe, so whoever moves first to become the defacto authority for electronics safety in that marketplace effectively controls who can sell.

Not that I think that this is a bad thing. As a consumer I want somebody else to take care that the things that I can buy don't kill me and I wouldn't trust some random commenters on the Internet for that kind of information.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#98

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…

My experience with Airbnb is that they overlook some nasty, inappropriate behavior that hosts exhibit in favor of profit. Companies like Airbnb and Uber aren't self-regulating at all.

Even more reasons to want an external party to be able to step in in such cases. I.e. censorship as a feature.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#99

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…

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…

Looking at existing "reputation metrics" (amazon, yelp, TA) I can't help being pessimistic about the concept of self-regulating distributed reputation.

Re: Decentralized Blockchain-Based Electronic Marketplaces

#100
post #67

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…

> We can redistribute value to the people who actually contribute the most value in the network. Actually that is how I envision people becoming self-reliant in a post-job society. Being jobless and with little money means you got: 1. free time, and 2. needs to fulfil. But jobless people are not without skills - we don't suddenly forget everything we learned when we lose our jobs. There's plenty of skilled people wit…

Yes! But let's give the human coin a better name; how about calling it the Dollar? And while we're at it, we need to figure out a way how to make the exchange rate fluctuate less, so let's back it with some real world materials that we know are pretty stable in perceived value; how about gold? Oh, and for some tasks and jobs I'm pretty sure we will need bigger groups of people working together. These are more complex tasks/projects that sometimes require hundreds, maybe even thousands of people working in cohort. How about we call those groups startups, and corporations? But who will decide to start these groups when it is deemed necessary? Let's decide anyone can; and we name them founders. And because they will start these groups, they probably get to decide how many of the dollars which contributor in the group gets from customers right? Because who decides how these dollars get distributed among the group? Someone needs to do that right, at least until we get a sufficiently capable AI to determine qualitative value to the end user. And let's call these rights of distribution of these dollars stocks, like a kind of certificate to the future profits.
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