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This sounds exactly like the current physical marketplace for anything illegal. Individual drug dealers are arrested, sometimes even big distributor organizations are taken down, but the trade network always goes on.
I see several comments questioning the legitimate value of a peer-to-peer marketplace. Some cannot see any use other than illegal commerce (drugs, porn, etc). It is true that such illicit trades will take advantage of that network but is it really impossible to envision legal business as the major activity? Yes, cars can be used as getaway vehicles from bank robberies and also smash terrorist bombs into government bu…
The problem with P2P is that it requires a much more complicated architecture than if you simply use a more centralized model. There's the old joke: I had a scalability problem so I switched to a distributed system. Now I have n^2 problems.
It is true that many architectures are moving towards a more decentralized model, however, they still have a central controller typically.
I see several comments questioning the legitimate value of a peer-to-peer marketplace. Some cannot see any use other than illegal commerce (drugs, porn, etc). It is true that such illicit trades will take advantage of that network but is it really impossible to envision legal business as the major activity? Yes, cars can be used as getaway vehicles from bank robberies and also smash terrorist bombs into government bu…
When OpenBazaar seems more mature I will definitely consider listing (my entirely legal) items on it first, at least to experiment. Lower fees + I'm happy with Bitcoin = Win.
I see several comments questioning the legitimate value of a peer-to-peer marketplace. Some cannot see any use other than illegal commerce (drugs, porn, etc). It is true that such illicit trades will take advantage of that network but is it really impossible to envision legal business as the major activity? Yes, cars can be used as getaway vehicles from bank robberies and also smash terrorist bombs into government bu…
Probably not.
Cars weren't invented to make bank robberies more difficult to stop. These networks were invented, to a degree which shouldn't be dismissed when considering their acceptance by the mainstream, to make enforcing laws against trading in anything more difficult, if not impossible.
I think most people (not most people on HN, or in tech, but most people in general) would rather pay the extra few dollars than support the premise of a truly free market. While I would agree completely that there are perfectly legitimate uses for these networks, and there is nothing at all evil or malicious in the technology itself, I also think it would be disingenuous to state that their use in illegal activities is somehow orthogonal to their purpose.
I see several comments questioning the legitimate value of a peer-to-peer marketplace. Some cannot see any use other than illegal commerce (drugs, porn, etc). It is true that such illicit trades will take advantage of that network but is it really impossible to envision legal business as the major activity? Yes, cars can be used as getaway vehicles from bank robberies and also smash terrorist bombs into government bu…
Why does a distributed marketplace intended for legal trade need to run on Tor? Do you need anonymity if you're selling towels?
The answer is that we believe people simply have the right to privacy in trade. Here's a discussion by the OpenBazaar team on the matter:
https://github.com/OpenBazaar/OpenBazaar/issues/189
Do you want your credit card company to know exactly where you've shopped for the past two years? Would you like your employer to know what porn movies you enjoy? Would you want your neighbourhood burglars to know exactly how much money you spent on your brand new Swiss watch this month? Is it OK if your super-market chain only offers discounts to you on the condition that you don't buy anything from other super-market chains?
Should your wife be able to scrutinize what trips you went to and how much you spent on expensive chocolate and alcohol without your permission? Discover before her birthday that you bought her a ring as a present? Would you feel alright if Google used all your shopping history to show you targeted ads? As a seller of rare books, do you want the prices of all purchases to be published to potential candidate sellers instead of being treated as trade secrets? Would you want your annoying jealous nephew to know you've booked snowboarding tickets to Austria without inviting him?
Is it acceptable for these things to be posted on the Internet and commented-on by Redditors?
Please, I invite you to post your credit card records for the past year here. We'll be happy to look over them and leave some comments for you. After all, you've got nothing to hide, yes?
Anonymity is important for people. For some people, it's more important than others. Different people have different needs. Sometimes anonymity is a matter of life and death, sometimes it's just a matter of personal privacy and the right to be left alone. Users can use the anonymity feature as they see fit, but we need to be there to protect them if they require so.
And, yes, some trade can be only marginally legal or completely illegal. Sometimes illegal trade is ethical, and laws vary from country to country. At least at the trade level, we should be free and anonymous. What if your Internet provider disables the Internet in your country by secret warrant request of the government if you live in North Korea, or Turkey in the times of Twitter-censorship, or Egypt in the time of the revolt, or Iran at times of war? Is it OK to leak to your government that you purchased an antenna off of OpenBazaar to access the Internet through mesh networks? Sometimes the penalty can be death.
Not everyone lives in free regimes where privacy is a matter of a warm, cozy feeling and convenience. People need privacy in trade to be free.
That said, freedom comes at a cost, and the price for being free is not low :)
Why would I shop anywhere without these assurances?
Can any distributed system deal with it? Probably best to leave it in place and expose such people, but who gets to decide which crimes warrant exposing the participants, and how would that even work? I can think about sting operations but that's about it.
I see several comments questioning the legitimate value of a peer-to-peer marketplace. Some cannot see any use other than illegal commerce (drugs, porn, etc). It is true that such illicit trades will take advantage of that network but is it really impossible to envision legal business as the major activity? Yes, cars can be used as getaway vehicles from bank robberies and also smash terrorist bombs into government bu…
>Can a more open platform for sellers without the stigma of illegal activity be realized? Probably not. Cars weren't invented to make bank robberies more difficult to stop. These networks were invented, to a degree which shouldn't be dismissed when considering their acceptance by the mainstream, to make enforcing laws against trading in anything more difficult, if not impossible. I think most people (not most people…
The Haber Process[1] was a new way to manufacture ammonia in large quantities. Fritz Haber was originally motivated by Germany's war objectives to kill people via poison gas and explosives. Germany needed a lot of synthetic ammonia to do that.
Now, the Haber process is mass producing fertilizer and feeding the world.
It's possible to divorce the original evil uses of the technology from the later good ones.
The potential 200 million ebay and whatever millions of amazonmarketplace legal sellers can outnumber the criminals. The 10% ebay fees and 15% amazon commissions are very compelling motivators to create an "open SMTP" type of marketplace for sellers.