Hi folks! I’m here with another idea. Let’s make an amazon alternative. I know! I know! That was asked for a couple times already but lets discuss some details.

Amazon is basically glorified dropshipping by now. What if we just made federated (not sure if over activitypub would work) ads and sales, powered by fediseer (the “trust” network of the fediverse).

Example 1: So you buy at toms groceries, you trust them. they have experience with tina’s hardware store and they trust them. so you can buy both toms and tinas wares on both sites.

Example 2: So for example, I run a small business that sells computers. You run a small business that sells mice and keyboards. I have worked with you before so I mark you as trusted in my local website, which federates with yours, showing your products in my shop. If a customer buys my computer and buys your keyboard on top, my site sends you a buy order with customer address and payment. I get a small fee for my electricity of say 1%.

Can someone try and poke holes in this idea? It feels like this could work!

Have a nice weekend.

  • Remy Rose@piefed.socialEnglish
    15·
    2 days ago

    Closest we’ve got right now is Flohmarkt, right? If they haven’t already been working on some kinda trust system, they’re probably taking code contributions. I saw somewhere else somebody suggested Loops integration for it, so they could have something like the tiktok shop. I mean capitalism is garbage, but unfortunately we do currently gotta buy stuff occasionally, and it would be nice if that experience sucked less.

    • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
      21·
      2 days ago

      Flohmarkt is nice if a little small atm but of course it is very new. I’ll check if it would work to implement their api in a normal website/shop. because my point also is to make people independent from each other so that no single entity can control them. in this case I mean if flohmarkt got “outlawed” for example because lobbyists and such, websites would prevail, i hope.

      Thanks for participating.

      • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukEnglish
        1·
        14 hours ago

        Flohmarkt is nice if a little small atm but of course it is very new.

        Philosophically, the classified ad model (a bit like Etsy or eBay without auctions, where you are just an introduction service) seems more in keeping with the Fediverse and has a lot less hassles than trying to replicate Amazon with all it’s storage and shipping.

        I’ll check if it would work to implement their api in a normal website/shop.

        What I’d like to see is more seamless integration of !flohmarkt@lemmy.ca into other Fediverse services.

        So someone has a blog for their writing on WordPress or Ghost but can run a sidebar or footer with links to Flohmarkt where people can buy a signed copy or special edition directly. Or you have it working with !neodb@lemmy.zip where users can read a review of a film and click through to see if anyone has a copy of the Blu-ray on Flohmarkt.

        Equally, !friendica@lemmy.ca is a kind of Facebook replacement and Flohmarkt could slot in there as a Marketplace replacement.

        In general we probably need more plug-ins in Fediverse services to help integrate things more tightly and Flohmarkt seems the kind of thing that would work well when slotted into a lot of other existing services.

        if flohmarkt got “outlawed” for example because lobbyists and such

        That would be very difficult to do with a decentralised service.

        • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
          1·
          8 hours ago

          I agree on all points except the last. It is no problem to outlaw something and disrupting fediverse instances is no problem either. With websites that is a whole different ballgame because they are manifold.

            • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.comOPEnglish
              1·
              5 hours ago

              No, they are not.

              Instances have websites but the bulk of the fediverse is done on a completely different layer, even a different port.

              Fediverse instances are clusters of microservices. They usually include a database, a frontend and a backend. The backend is where the api is and where federation requests come in and go out. Thats where the magic happens.

              If you want to test this, just disable the webserver (frontend) and watch the instance still working. You can also see this working when you look at the different frontends of some bigger lemmy instances for example.