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About the trust and reputation issue, I think blockchain technologies could play an important role for decentralized services like this. I would like to see a

by bpierre 10y ago

About the trust and reputation issue, I think blockchain technologies could play an important role for decentralized services like this. I would like to see a multipurpose reputation / trust system based on the blockchain, exposing all the needed features as a simple library and / or HTTP API, ready to be implemented by apps and websites. I think we are still in a period where a lot of products are built either in a centralized way, or all on the blockchain and decentralized technologies (like IPFS). It makes sense as we are still in the experimentation phase, but it could change in the near future. People could start using the blockchain where it is the most efficient today, as a brick part of a product (e.g. to build a solid decentralized reputation system), instead of being the foundation layer of the product.

repomies691 10y ago
I think most of this "blockchain talk" is just nonsense. Uber/lyft similar are very complex services, which are pretty pain in the ass to maintain and develop. What would be the incentive to develop such an app in decentralized fashion? What if there are problems between rider and driver, who will act as a middleman to resolve issues? What about basic support etc?
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Cheaper prices for one thing.
- bpierre 10y ago
  > What would be the incentive to develop such an app in decentralized fashion? What if there are problems between rider and driver, who will act as a middleman to resolve issues? What about basic support etc? Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, but I am precisely talking about this: using the blockchain for what it is good at today, instead of trying to put everything on a decentralized system (which is really hard or just impossible for now). Uber / Lyft and others have a reputation system in place, opaque and developed specifically for their product. It’s an important part, but it is just a brick in the complexity of the services they are building. I am talking about replacing this brick by an open, blockchain-based reputation service (that doesn’t exist AFAIK). That way, any app developer could benefit from the transparency and guaranteed properties from the blockchain. It could even be easier to use than to implement it as a private system.
  - vosper 10y ago
    What is "the blockchain" and what built-in features does it have that can replace a purpose-built reputation system?
    - bpierre 10y ago
      In this context, you can see the blockchain as a database, always available, and containing entries (transactions in blocks) that you can not delete. It’s very simplified, see the Wikipedia article [1] for more details about blockchain systems. The specific features that I find interesting to build an “open trust system” built on top of it, compared to a traditional database, are: - Transparency: anyone can explore this database, and verify that the software is using it in a transparent way. It might sound not important for something like Uber, but if you build an open trust system that could be used by different services, it becomes very important for authors (Uber, Lyft, etc.) to trust this system. - Reliability: because a blockchain is distributed, it is always running and available. - Trust: transactions are immutable and a transaction can not be falsified once confirmed (validated). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_(database) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_(database)
      - vurpo 10y ago
        There is a problem: cryptographic solutions (like blockchain) cannot help build trust, only to maintain it. If a driver loses trust, they can just create a new private key and now they're up and running without any bad reviews again.
        AlexAffe 10y ago
        Very good point.
dclowd9901 10y ago
Simply an "identity" block chain would be an amazing advancement for peer to peer services. I'd love to know if the craigslist person I was going to meet was identifiable independently.
- joeyspn 10y ago
  Martti Malmi aka "Sirius" was working exactly on this [0] right after he left the Bitcoin space... I have been also interested in decentralised reputation via Ethereum, which you can implement w/o a dedicated blockchain via smart contracts (eg. [1]). IMO distributed rep would fit perfectly in a project like LibreTaxi where you don't have (or don't want to have) a centralised system... [0] https://github.com/identifi/identifi https://github.com/identifi/identifi [1] https://medium.com/@alexberegszaszi/building-decentralized-reputation-management-as-a-smart-contract-6d60b0c7bd0 https://medium.com/@alexberegszaszi/building-decentralized-r...

by bpierre 10y ago

repomies691 10y ago

I think most of this "blockchain talk" is just nonsense. Uber/lyft similar are very complex services, which are pretty pain in the ass to maintain and develop. What would be the incentive to develop such an app in decentralized fashion? What if there are problems between rider and driver, who will act as a middleman to resolve issues? What about basic support etc?

ThomPete 10y ago
Cheaper prices for one thing.
bpierre 10y ago
> What would be the incentive to develop such an app in decentralized fashion? What if there are problems between rider and driver, who will act as a middleman to resolve issues? What about basic support etc? Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, but I am precisely talking about this: using the blockchain for what it is good at today, instead of trying to put everything on a decentralized system (which is really hard or just impossible for now). Uber / Lyft and others have a reputation system in place, opaque and developed specifically for their product. It’s an important part, but it is just a brick in the complexity of the services they are building. I am talking about replacing this brick by an open, blockchain-based reputation service (that doesn’t exist AFAIK). That way, any app developer could benefit from the transparency and guaranteed properties from the blockchain. It could even be easier to use than to implement it as a private system.
- vosper 10y ago
  What is "the blockchain" and what built-in features does it have that can replace a purpose-built reputation system?
  - bpierre 10y ago
    In this context, you can see the blockchain as a database, always available, and containing entries (transactions in blocks) that you can not delete. It’s very simplified, see the Wikipedia article [1] for more details about blockchain systems. The specific features that I find interesting to build an “open trust system” built on top of it, compared to a traditional database, are: - Transparency: anyone can explore this database, and verify that the software is using it in a transparent way. It might sound not important for something like Uber, but if you build an open trust system that could be used by different services, it becomes very important for authors (Uber, Lyft, etc.) to trust this system. - Reliability: because a blockchain is distributed, it is always running and available. - Trust: transactions are immutable and a transaction can not be falsified once confirmed (validated). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_(database) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain_(database)
    - vurpo 10y ago
      There is a problem: cryptographic solutions (like blockchain) cannot help build trust, only to maintain it. If a driver loses trust, they can just create a new private key and now they're up and running without any bad reviews again.
      - AlexAffe 10y ago
        Very good point.

dclowd9901 10y ago

Simply an "identity" block chain would be an amazing advancement for peer to peer services. I'd love to know if the craigslist person I was going to meet was identifiable independently.

joeyspn 10y ago
Martti Malmi aka "Sirius" was working exactly on this [0] right after he left the Bitcoin space... I have been also interested in decentralised reputation via Ethereum, which you can implement w/o a dedicated blockchain via smart contracts (eg. [1]). IMO distributed rep would fit perfectly in a project like LibreTaxi where you don't have (or don't want to have) a centralised system... [0] https://github.com/identifi/identifi https://github.com/identifi/identifi [1] https://medium.com/@alexberegszaszi/building-decentralized-reputation-management-as-a-smart-contract-6d60b0c7bd0 https://medium.com/@alexberegszaszi/building-decentralized-r...