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Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

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Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#61

Post by pushedx »

swyx wrote: post #32
jpatt wrote: post #24

A few points I'm skeptical of: simply connect to the seller’s infra instead of locking them in. One of the value-adds of Amazon is there's a whole bunch of tech sellers don't need to know how to write, run, and maintain. You'd need to understand how big the niche "technically literate to run their own e-commerce business, but selling on Amazon for other reasons" is, then how your operation would answer those "other r…

i think the branding "open source Amazon" is just way too ambitious/big. invites a lot of confusion/criticism if Amazon is different things to different people.

I think it’s good marketing.

Amazon’s primary source of revenue is as a market-maker/logisticics provider, so why not position yourself as a competitor if it gets contributors interested?

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#62

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

bmismyname wrote: post #21

Good luck and I hope you succeed, but the (unfortunate) reality check I'll give you is that money rules everything, and if you get even the slightest bit of traction, there is more than a trillion dollars in market cap behind ensuring you (and nobody else) will ever succeed. The only way to get ahead these days is to either 1) flout the laws or 2) have enough capital and political influence to force your way to succe…

That is a very pessimistic way of looking at things. While it is true that there are entrenched interests that do what they can to prevent any new entrants from disrupting their dominance, I feel obligated to point out that this has always been the case. Just to point to how bad things in US have been at one point, I would like to point out the oft-discussed robber barons and the origin of antitrust laws.

Edit: I forgot to add a conclusion somehow.

And yet, somehow we ended up with Googles, FBs, Amazons, Teslas and multiple other in tech sector alone over the past few decades. Neither of those started even close to existing dominant forces in the market.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#63

Post by rglover »

traceroute66 wrote: post #47
rglover wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I admire your ambition, but perhaps rein it in a little ? Maaaan if we were in the same room. Don't belittle someone who's trying to accomplish something (and following through with it).

> Maaaan if we were in the same room. Don't belittle someone who's trying to accomplish something (and following through with it). I'm not belittling. I'm just saying set realistic goals. "Build an open-source Amazon" without the budget or the manpower ? Its simply not realistic unless you have very deep pockets and a team of hundreds of full-time staff. If you think I'm being unduly harsh, what sort of grilling do y…

No, you're setting limits on another human being, likely because you're intimidated by them even having the stones to go through with it (and you won't/can't). Folks like you are a dime-a-dozen and they are always hollow souls who can't accomplish a fraction of the people they push down.

> what sort of grilling do you think the OP will be subjected to when they rock up at a bank or VC fund looking for a few hundred million ?

Appropriate grilling (financial prospects, executive potential, etc), not being told to "lower your ambitions."

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#64

Post by ikrenji »

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #49
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #44

Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.

Amazon.com is likely the most a/b tested piece of software on the planet. It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_ - same with Alibaba and Yahoo JP.

i read somewhere that bezos personally controls the look and feel of amazon and thats why it looks like that. some amazon UX/UI director even quit over it

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#67

Post by light_hue_1 »

ryan29 wrote: post #46
eastbayjake wrote: post #30

Love open source projects in the eCommerce domain, especially ones that are JavaScript instead of PHP! Two pieces of feedback: - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. - You've really built an Order Management System for marketplace us…

> - Using a copyleft license like AGPL makes this an automatic non-starter for most businesses, no matter how impressive your tech might be. You'll have a lot more luck with mid-size and enterprise adoption with an MIT license. What makes the AGPL unattractive? I thought it was basically just the GPL with a limitation on using the software to provide a SaaS product. You don't even have to contribute unpublished chang…

AGPL is banned from every corporation I have ever seen.

Because it's viral even when it is used internally, you might end up having to release things you never expected and that are very sensitive.

It would be insane to allow anyone to use AGPL code in any corporate environment.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#68

Post by abvdj2 »

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #49
rocket_surgeron wrote: post #44

Those efforts look impressive but no service will be a version (open source or otherwise) of Amazon until it can place a single tube of toothpaste in my garage 18 hours after I ordered it, which it just did thirty minutes ago. Amazon’s “tech” stack, both consumer- and seller-facing is horrible and borderline irrelevant. Their fleet of trucks and aircraft is not.

Amazon.com is likely the most a/b tested piece of software on the planet. It is ugly and clunky because that's what _works_ - same with Alibaba and Yahoo JP.

That is not true, some parts might be clunky because that works, but there's also many parts that are clunky simply because it's hard to make a change without breaking anything. But amazon doesn't care due to their strong position in the market and because AWS is their cash-cow anyways.

Re: Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

#69

Post by theturtletalks »

mikeiz404 wrote: post #34
theturtletalks wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just one piece of the puzzle. I explained it in another comment: > I think of it this way. Launching a marketplace today is very difficult, but what if we made the backend of a marketplace open-source and used that as leverage. One that could be your backend for all operations. You can choose to enable the integrated marketplace or not, but the system is yours. It’s about bringing power back to the sellers.

Is my understanding correct that: The leverage comes from lowering the seller’s switching cost to go to/add another market place by intermediating the seller/market place relationship with open-ship. That way when you release the open marketplace open-front you can get easy discoverability and a very low switching/adding cost from an existing set of sellers?

You nailed it! Existing and future marketplaces would adapt to your system, not the other way around.
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