Is it possible to one day replace the privacy nightmare of Amazon with a decentralized merchant network? All I really use Amazon for these day is aggregate customer reviews by query, then buy the items as direct as possible. Why can’t respectable tools to this instead? I understand the cost, but could the tech be adopted?
I’m not entirely sure you’d want that, tbh.
Think about how logistics work, and how fuel has to be spent. You don’t want a decentralized network for physical goods. That’s extremely inefficient and wasteful.
Even if it’s just about the final point of sale… we kinda already have these aggregations of individual merchant stalls? We call them “malls” mostly, nowadays, or “markets”, depending on type. They exist, but keep in mind that a lot of stuff is centralized behind the scenes, be it maintenance, logistics or chains.
I apologize for not being more specific, I’m not interested in a centralized delivery system. I just want vendors to have their inventories posted online (as usual), but for them to be aggregated by category and filterable in one location without depending on a dystopian tech company. MAYBE have a frontend to appear as though everything is centralized, but I would be indifferent
Aaaah, okay. I keep thinking I heard of exactly this in the German city of Hamburg before, or even the entire area. But I can’t find anything about it right now. But I’m sure I had heard of this. There was like this meta-shopping-system, and then the orders were fulfilled by each company individually, they just pooled their catalogues basically.
Decentralized online market is just going to the manufacturer/vendor website and buying it from them directly.
I don’t know about “decentralized” as centralization is a driving influence in cost of marketing. Amazon is efficient because of every step of the way is centralized, from store front to the warehousing to the shipping. Sure there are some products that don’t ship by Amazon, but they’re usually at a cost disadvantage unless they’re unique. Plus payment processing is centralized and allows for consumer protections which wouldn’t be possible with something like crypto.
Amazon could be dethroned, but it would require very specific circumstances and unlikely wouldn’t be by a privacy minded entity.
Amazon is cheap because personal data subsidizes a lot. If they couldn’t sell targeted sponsor ads to you, they’d make that revenue up elsewhere.
Using amazon for it’s reviews? Isn’t that one of the least trustworthy aspects of amazon?
deleted by creator
Have a look at particl.io
I haven’t installed it yet, but that sounds exactly like what I had in mind. Is it limited by which companies have adopted it?
The developers have made it clear that they want to have a robust, sophisticated and scalable ecosystem before they do any advertising. The project is therefore mostly known only in cypherpunk and niche privacy communities, and so are the things that are sold on the public marketplace.
However, all the tools and automations to run an efficient online commerce already exist. For example, there is a connection to WooCommerce and scripts that facilitate the listing of items.
So from the technical side, practically everything is already available in the marketplace. What is missing is a web integration which is urgently needed for a broader adoption and easier possibilities to buy PART the native currency. The developers are currently working on the latter by developing Basicswapdex.com.
I use Google Shopping. While Google is centralized, its merchant network is decentralized and I often find things that I can’t on Amazon.
