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 don’t see that happening. I think the problem is not even technical - ActivityPub could absolutely serve the purpose. My pessimism comes from the incredible potential for spam and just shit products. Take current amazon - it’s full of rubbish from aliexpress. Now increase that by a few orders of magnitude, since every merchant could just spin up their own shopfront with no supervision.
Indeed, there needs to be third parties who control quality - just like there are moderators here, if you think about it. We already sort of have those moderators : local shop keepers. I’d be satisfied with a service that allows me to leverage all those local shops without having to leave my place (as I mentioned in an other comment on this page : “Uber Eats/Deliveroo for everything”).
I think the decentralized but moderated review network is the most important part. I like the idea of local shop keepers with specialized knowledge (I’m thinking of my local goto kitchen store) or just online experts (like the folks at whathifi). I like to research a bit (a lot really) before I decide what to buy and a resource like this would be invaluable. Finding it locally after deciding what to buy can be an issue (especially if you are not in the US), but this aspect could be separate, as is shipping.
Damn, that’s a good point. I have no technical coding experience or knowledge (so no one should take what I’m about to say seriously), but I was picturing a lot of scripting pulling information across the web from selected vendors. Maybe that could prevent something like that? Or maybe I’m just making myself sound naive and stupid?
Decentralized online market is just going to the manufacturer/vendor website and buying it from them directly.
Using amazon for it’s reviews? Isn’t that one of the least trustworthy aspects of amazon?
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.
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Amazon is too big. Bigger than some countries economy. Nothing can replace it.
If you count ship to store or home sales, it’s competing with Walmart, Hole Depot, Zoro and EBay. Most of the same garbage sellers are on those sites as well. The problem is none of them are any better than Amazon.
I’m just attempting to shop locally, or if I need something particular , get it from more trustworthy (though unfortunately usually more expensive) sources, usually direct from manufacturers, or industrial suppliers (McMaster or Grainger for hardware or construction parts for example).
Bookshop.org is an attempt to provide an alternative to Amazon as a bookseller by using a network of independent book stores. It’s not decentralized technologically or anything like that; it’s just a website that bookshops can affiliate with. But it does represent a model to build an alternative that other industries can learn from.
Flohmarkt is probably the closest thing https://codeberg.org/grindhold/flohmarkt
I use Google Shopping. While Google is centralized, its merchant network is decentralized and I often find things that I can’t on Amazon.
