Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea!
-
All these services are centralized. Thats the entire point. I'm trying to figure out how to do this in a social, open and transparent way. Maybe check out techno feudalism to see why i think the needs to happen pretty soon.
-
There is no real point. You did not seem to get what the other person said and so I added it to make it a bit more clear on why its not an amazon replacement because amazon does so much more. Its just sorta how conversations involving a few people work. Im not just talking about the last thing you said but about the whole read down the line.
-
@haui_lemmy I had a mostly similar idea a few weeks ago but I'm a mess ( sleep issues ) so no coding for me.
But yes, as I mentioned somewhere extending activitypub could be a start. -
You are completely misunderstanding what Amazon actually does, and why it's successful, despite being a shitty company. It's first and foremost a logistics company. People can order "stuff" in many places, but if they order it on Amazon, they'll get it by tomorrow if they order it before midnight. They got warehouse everywhere. They do (some) of their own final deliveries for anyone close to those, use the big logistics players for the rest (ups, DHL, ...) while having massive volume and the power to dictate price that comes with that. The number of workers in the warehouses is actually minuscule for their size, it's all automated. Huge up front cost, very low cost once it's actually running.
Consumers go there because they can get literally anything. Again: warehouses. It's also a market place but that only works (these days) because it's THE place the people go. The reviews are also a massive point, and would be inherently untrustworthy in a federated version.
How would you ever get anyone to go to your federated version for shopping that sells like "some" things? Even if you manage to combine all those shops, you'd need a way to agree on what an item is called (or how to assign id numbers) so the same item from multiple sellers is grouped in the same offer, and many similar small things you take for granted it didn't even ever see/notice on Amazon.
-
With Amazon you pay that service if you consider that its prices are often higher than standard ecommerce sites.
You can say it's a very comfortable service, but try to think how many times you returned products that you considered really necessary... -
It's much more than that. Amazon's strength is also in its proximity warehouses and contacts with delivery companies.
Otherwise you just have a federated Ebay.
-
So in simple terms, you propose to build a mom-and-pop shop and have it act like a global player like Amazon?
Congrats, it does not happen very often I sit in a chair and stare at the screen in disbelief!
-
Could this be an app realized based on the mycelial web - amazon uses huge AI models to predict their customer's behaviour and do the logistics ... (not sure myself, but it probably won't work solely on ActivityPub)
-
I order stuff from ebay. Got a phone on the way from china right now. Ebay work-alike might not be a bad place to start.
-
The goal is not to ensnare the user but to free them. AI is absolutely not part of this idea. I havent read of the mycelial web yet though. Is it a thing or just an AI pipedream?
-
Whatever your idea of a mom and pop shop and acting like a global player is, I'm not thinking of anything like this. As I mentioned. This already exists. The idea is to automate and streamline some parts, basically.
-
Exactly. The idea is to not make a perfect copy but a viable alternative without the constant breaks in design and trust when scouring the web for items. All those funny labels on websites for example like trustedshops are just for this. If one could make a web of trust, that would eliminate fakes and take power from for profit companies who make these labels and control trust.
-
Amazon has a lot of different aspects, same as facebook and xitter. I aim to think of alternatives, not perfect copies. My only hard target is that it is free from single entity control. Thats why not ebay or one of the others. Flohmarkt is kind of promising but i'll check it out deeper and host an instance. That way I can judge its potential.
-
I'd really appreciate your points, were they not shrouded in condescension. I understand very well what amazon does.
If you feel like helping, think of constructive things to say. Otherwise dont waste your energy.
-
You dont need to code. Help can have many forms. Ideas, counsel, testing, building, planning, etc. Feel free to dm me if you're interested in building something. The most promising start so far was flohmarkt. It already kind of does something remotely like this but its very young. I'll check it out and report back.
-
Got it. Thanks for chiming in. I never meant to clone the company. I'm talking about amazon.com maybe I didnt make that clear enough, sorry.
-
im sorry so you did not meant to clone amazon.com in a federated way but your talking about amazon.com? im a bit confused myself at this point.
-
So... Postmates/Instacart but using activitypub for... Some reason?
-
@haui_lemmy Flomarket is more like a separate shops, you need a protocol, and gui's that are easy to embed via EU made web frameworks like drupal. ( React to be avoided as it's from meta ) That way you see the shop on the individual site but also can create aggregators that look like ebay or ammazon but are federated.
