8 ms·

What uses do you see for this aside from illegal drugs, cybercrime, terrorism, child porn and human trafficking? Do you feel you're making the world a better pl

by ferrel2078 9y ago

What uses do you see for this aside from illegal drugs, cybercrime, terrorism, child porn and human trafficking? Do you feel you're making the world a better place with this project?

jstanley 9y ago
You seriously can't imagine any uses for an online marketplace that aren't illegal?? Have you bought or sold anything online in the last week? Those things could probably be done on OpenBazaar.
- boomlinde 9y ago
  > You seriously can't imagine any uses for an online marketplace that aren't illegal?? > Have you bought or sold anything online in the last week? Those things could probably be done on OpenBazaar. But will they? I don't think that's a fair summary of the criticism. There are already much more convenient alternatives for legally selling goods and services, using currency that's actually effectively currency, without using some command line tool to run a node. I think there are going to be three types of users: 1) people that are using it out mostly out of interest of the technology, 2) people to whom the platform is ideologically interesting i.e. anti-government types, libertarians, anti-corporate types etc., and 3) users that actually benefit from the anonymity and lack of censorship by selling illegal goods or completely avoiding taxes. I wouldn't be surprised if the last category eventually grows much bigger than the former two. I only hope that it will be mostly illegal goods that don't harm really anyone, like cheap counterfeit consumer crap.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    Would you have said the same things about eBay when eBay first launched? "Who would buy anything on eBay when there are already more convenient alternatives?" ? I buy almost everything on eBay because of the convenience of having the same search system and user interface for every type of thing I want to buy. I'd love to get a similar user experience without having to trust eBay as the arbiter of every single transaction. For example you can't buy knvives on eBay, so when I want to buy a knife I have to go somewhere else. I bought a number plate for my car on eBay recently (old one was cracked), and it all went fine, but when I went to buy another I found the seller's account had been shut down by eBay, for unspecified reasons. On OpenBazaar that wouldn't be able to happen.
    - boomlinde 9y ago
      > Would you have said the same things about eBay when eBay first launched? Not really. I don't know of any much more convenient ways to facilitate auctions that predates eBay. I'm too young, really, to say out of experience how things were before eBay, but personally I went directly from browsing second hand stores and newspaper classifieds to use the local eBay clone which afforded it the additional convenience of only listing local items, but that was eventually bought by eBay as well. For the general consumer I don't think that trust in eBay or having to go someplace else to buy knives and license plates is enough of an inconvenience to outweigh the inconvenience of trusting your bitcoins to have roughly the same value the day after tomorrow, or having to run a daemon to access listings. I don't think you're wrong or that you have misplaced your priorities somehow, but I think you'd belong in category 1 and/or 2, and for as long as those aren't representative of the broad public I think services like OpenBazaar will mostly be attractive to those operating in the legal grays and blacks, simply thinking in terms of who's got most to gain from anonymity, lack of governance and untraceable transactions despite their inconveniences. But let's say it attracts some 10000 (+/- an order of magnitude) privacy-minded cryptoanarchists that are all there because they don't trust sites like eBay or can't find some categories of legitimate items there because of some of eBay's rules. The sheer breadth of items, buyers and sellers afforded by a much more generally convenient site like eBay or CL won't be available to them, and I think that's going to turn a lot of people off that aren't explicitly looking to buy items that are much harder to get elsewhere. Maybe they'll find their knives and license plates but it'll be switchblades and counterfeits respectively.
SamPatt 9y ago
I can speak objectively about this because I watch the network every day. Tens of thousands of listings on the network and the vast overwhelming majority are legal and moral. People use it because it's cheaper and more private than alternatives. There are some illegal drugs on the network. Thus far I haven't seen any evidence of the other stuff you've claimed. Perhaps it's human nature that people will eventually abuse the technology in that way, but it doesn't mean the technology isn't valuable, and it doesn't mean that the benefits don't outweigh the costs. This is obviously an age-old debate about new technology, but if we had the mindset that any technology that can be used for evil shouldn't be allowed to exist then we wouldn't have TCP/IP and HTTP and SMS and SMTP, etc.
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
  Is there a convenient place to see the listings without installing the app?
  - SamPatt 9y ago
    The app is very easy to download and run: https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases But if you can't be bothered then there is a search engine as well: https://blockbooth.com/search/ https://blockbooth.com/search/
  - flyingfences 9y ago
    You can search the network at bazaarbay.org
- qwerty456127 9y ago
  That's exactly what I think (though I am not 100% sure). The time has came for this IMHO.
ttul 9y ago
Disrupting Amazon is as good a reason as any.
cgmg 9y ago
The recent SESTA/FOSTA debacle is just one example of why such decentralized networks are needed.
zaggynl 9y ago
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- FatalLogic 9y ago
  Because we are discussing legality, I want to point out that you just aggregated and published these links, the developers of the OpenBazaar software did not. So if a crime is being committed here, which of you is more likely to be committing it?
  - zaggynl 9y ago
    Send me a DMCA request, I'll take them offline, like Google and other websites do. Does OpenBazaar do this? Probably not. Are all these people anonymous on IPFS? Probably somewhat because they're behind VPNs or proxies, at least that's what I hope they do if they're offering things like above. Will this stop law enforcement? No, it will not: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/08/vpn_logs_helped_unmask_alleged_net_stalker_say_feds/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/08/vpn_logs_helped_unm...

What uses do you see for this aside from illegal drugs, cybercrime, terrorism, child porn and human trafficking? Do you feel you're making the world a better place with this project?

jstanley 9y ago

You seriously can't imagine any uses for an online marketplace that aren't illegal?? Have you bought or sold anything online in the last week? Those things could probably be done on OpenBazaar.

boomlinde 9y ago
> You seriously can't imagine any uses for an online marketplace that aren't illegal?? > Have you bought or sold anything online in the last week? Those things could probably be done on OpenBazaar. But will they? I don't think that's a fair summary of the criticism. There are already much more convenient alternatives for legally selling goods and services, using currency that's actually effectively currency, without using some command line tool to run a node. I think there are going to be three types of users: 1) people that are using it out mostly out of interest of the technology, 2) people to whom the platform is ideologically interesting i.e. anti-government types, libertarians, anti-corporate types etc., and 3) users that actually benefit from the anonymity and lack of censorship by selling illegal goods or completely avoiding taxes. I wouldn't be surprised if the last category eventually grows much bigger than the former two. I only hope that it will be mostly illegal goods that don't harm really anyone, like cheap counterfeit consumer crap.
- jstanley 9y ago
  Would you have said the same things about eBay when eBay first launched? "Who would buy anything on eBay when there are already more convenient alternatives?" ? I buy almost everything on eBay because of the convenience of having the same search system and user interface for every type of thing I want to buy. I'd love to get a similar user experience without having to trust eBay as the arbiter of every single transaction. For example you can't buy knvives on eBay, so when I want to buy a knife I have to go somewhere else. I bought a number plate for my car on eBay recently (old one was cracked), and it all went fine, but when I went to buy another I found the seller's account had been shut down by eBay, for unspecified reasons. On OpenBazaar that wouldn't be able to happen.
  - boomlinde 9y ago
    > Would you have said the same things about eBay when eBay first launched? Not really. I don't know of any much more convenient ways to facilitate auctions that predates eBay. I'm too young, really, to say out of experience how things were before eBay, but personally I went directly from browsing second hand stores and newspaper classifieds to use the local eBay clone which afforded it the additional convenience of only listing local items, but that was eventually bought by eBay as well. For the general consumer I don't think that trust in eBay or having to go someplace else to buy knives and license plates is enough of an inconvenience to outweigh the inconvenience of trusting your bitcoins to have roughly the same value the day after tomorrow, or having to run a daemon to access listings. I don't think you're wrong or that you have misplaced your priorities somehow, but I think you'd belong in category 1 and/or 2, and for as long as those aren't representative of the broad public I think services like OpenBazaar will mostly be attractive to those operating in the legal grays and blacks, simply thinking in terms of who's got most to gain from anonymity, lack of governance and untraceable transactions despite their inconveniences. But let's say it attracts some 10000 (+/- an order of magnitude) privacy-minded cryptoanarchists that are all there because they don't trust sites like eBay or can't find some categories of legitimate items there because of some of eBay's rules. The sheer breadth of items, buyers and sellers afforded by a much more generally convenient site like eBay or CL won't be available to them, and I think that's going to turn a lot of people off that aren't explicitly looking to buy items that are much harder to get elsewhere. Maybe they'll find their knives and license plates but it'll be switchblades and counterfeits respectively.

SamPatt 9y ago

I can speak objectively about this because I watch the network every day. Tens of thousands of listings on the network and the vast overwhelming majority are legal and moral. People use it because it's cheaper and more private than alternatives. There are some illegal drugs on the network. Thus far I haven't seen any evidence of the other stuff you've claimed. Perhaps it's human nature that people will eventually abuse the technology in that way, but it doesn't mean the technology isn't valuable, and it doesn't mean that the benefits don't outweigh the costs. This is obviously an age-old debate about new technology, but if we had the mindset that any technology that can be used for evil shouldn't be allowed to exist then we wouldn't have TCP/IP and HTTP and SMS and SMTP, etc.

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
Is there a convenient place to see the listings without installing the app?
- SamPatt 9y ago
  The app is very easy to download and run: https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases https://github.com/OpenBazaar/openbazaar-desktop/releases But if you can't be bothered then there is a search engine as well: https://blockbooth.com/search/ https://blockbooth.com/search/
- flyingfences 9y ago
  You can search the network at bazaarbay.org
qwerty456127 9y ago
That's exactly what I think (though I am not 100% sure). The time has came for this IMHO.

ttul 9y ago

Disrupting Amazon is as good a reason as any.

cgmg 9y ago

The recent SESTA/FOSTA debacle is just one example of why such decentralized networks are needed.

zaggynl 9y ago

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FatalLogic 9y ago
Because we are discussing legality, I want to point out that you just aggregated and published these links, the developers of the OpenBazaar software did not. So if a crime is being committed here, which of you is more likely to be committing it?
- zaggynl 9y ago
  Send me a DMCA request, I'll take them offline, like Google and other websites do. Does OpenBazaar do this? Probably not. Are all these people anonymous on IPFS? Probably somewhat because they're behind VPNs or proxies, at least that's what I hope they do if they're offering things like above. Will this stop law enforcement? No, it will not: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/08/vpn_logs_helped_unmask_alleged_net_stalker_say_feds/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/08/vpn_logs_helped_unm...