Re: OpenBazaar: Decentralized markets for online trade

On 3/6/15 2:29 AM, Anders Rundgren wrote:
> It depends, notarization isn't for free and explicit paying for such
> services probably won't be terribly popular.

Popular to who? To you?  ;-)

AFAI understand, OpenBazaar is attempting a revolutionary worldwide 
system that might be able to do things that have never existed (but 
have been dreamed by many, including on this list).

If they can present a system that does these things -- including close 
to zero transaction costs in an industry that takes 3% commonly and 
skims another 2% or so behind the scenes for currency exchange -- 
wouldn't there be room for a thriving notary business that could 
charge, say, half a %, and still keep many users happy?

Plus, it occurs to me that for digital sales -- downloading digital 
works of science, art, music, software -- the notary might not be as 
important. IMO people have always traditionally been taking a 
calculated risk with buying information, based on various combinations 
of trust and previews. It appears that their web of trust could be 
part of this tradition.

Interesting that they're moving head-on towards a confrontation with 
governments, by saying "Yes, you can sell drugs with it. You can do 
whatever you like with this, we just made it, we're not responsible".

Pandora's box...?

Steven Rowat

>
> BTW, is searching for products really realistic in a fully
> decentralized model?
> TPB (The Pirate Bay) as far as I know (I'm not much of a
> freeloader...) provided this component which is the reason the
> founders now are in prison.
> Maybe you can create a TPB-like information aggregator for this as
> well?  Ebay 2.0?
>
> A decentralized Facebook seems like a more useful concept than a
> decentralized marketplace.
>
> OTOH, they say that you shouldn't reject things you haven't tested so
> I may be totally wrong :-)
>
> Anyway, I think that we need new hardware to make decentralized
> systems a viable alternative.
> I.e. there should be an Internet-facing server in every home router.
> Well, you can of course use a hosting service.
> However, since hosting services for consumers in order to be
> profitable need millions of customers, the word "decentralized" then
> becomes somewhat exaggerated.
>
> Anders
>
>

Received on Friday, 6 March 2015 20:45:31 UTC