Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea!
-
Yeah, so 18% of the stuff is shipped by someone else. IDK if you want to call that "a lot", but I definitely wouldn't call it "very few." Anyway glad we got to the answer, however to characterize it.
-
Wasn't a federated Amazon just a mall, in a way?
A mall is a private real estate instrument built by speculators to extract rent from businesses and it's actually rather predatory. This is fundamentally not real estate and fundamentally does not exist to extract rent, so it's more like "what if you took a mall and removed all the mall-ness from it".
If malls were collectively owned by the stores that comprise them and pieces of the mall could appear and disappear at will of whoever's participating... Is it actually even still a mall really???
-
This is incredibly valuable advice! Thank you so much!
My current stance on federation is of course opt in and requires the main seller to trust the downstream vendors.
The main point is that this already happens for a large portion of thing you can buy. I sell computers and adjacent services, classical system integration if you will. Of course I have to buy the systems from vendors and resell them to my customers.
Many system integrators have shops where some of them rely on custom integration of vendor apis. Take minecraft server sites for example that have an automated integration with a hosting company's api (eg hetzner). you as a customer just order a server, their automation makes the order processing with hetzner and provisions the server for you.
Now make this over a non custom but standardized api, eg activity pub.
I might still be overlooking stuff but from a technical standpoint this should be doable. The legal aspect is interesting, although I think this could be done similar to already existing resellers.
Feel free to point out flaws obvious to you. I appreciate your feedback massively.
I think the biggest issue is that if you already need to separate payments, returns, shipping, etc... you're left with a shop that also advertises products for other shops, possibly competitors. Then the question becomes... why bother federating at all?
I think it'd be better to set up a FOSS shopping platform, eg something that competes with WooCommerce or the likes. That's significantly easier from a financial and legal perspective, and I think it's an easier sell to actual merchants (why pay a license for that shit, use this one for freeee). Then once you have that running, you could think about optional federation as an addition to an already well-functioning platform.
-
There is a simple way to solve this. Make it so only people who have purchased the product can give reviews.
There is absolutely nothing "simple" about that. It sounds simple, but what does "someone has purchased a product" actually mean, in technical terms?
Let's start basic, since this is a proposal about a federated system, there are instances. Who runs these and why? Does ever seller run an instance? can there be users/customers on those? if not, who runs the customer-instances? Who defines what a product is, and are products like communities? or more like posts? how do you correlate different sellers selling the same item, where a review would obviously apply to both? can you review a shop or seller? Are delivery services their own "entitty" and can you review those, too? When you purchase an item
Now without any answers to any of those question, let's just go to the next level. Where are the reviews stored? in the instance where the item is sold (possibly owned by the shop)? or with the user? if it's with the user, how does a webserver displaying an item find all the reviews for it? Does this differ between reviews for items and reviews of shops/sellers?
If a review is stored on the instance of the seller, he can just add an entry to the database stating "user x purchased item y", and the review is valid. If the reviews are stored with the user, he can spin up an instance, and create a bunch of users there who can leave reviews, because he can mark sales as "valid" as the seller, no matter if there was any item and/or money exchanged.
I wrote all of this thinking about the classic sellers attempt at "creating good reviews to boost a product", but there is the opposite threat of review-bombing (might be a competing product or seller, or you just don't like pink shirts and decide to review-bomb those): How you protect against those has similarities, but reverses the roles essentially. Sellers are now the "target", and reviewers the "threat".
Aaaand this all is just about reviews, which have no monetary value. The platforms main goal would be to deal with physical items, exchanged for real money, and creating physical effects (like shipping). All those have to also be secured in a much more robust way. If a fake review or two slip through the cracks, who cares. But if just one valuable item goes missing (or is never shipped), or the payment for it, that's immediately a problem.
-
I really don't see the appeal of activity-pub for this.
It's a protocol used for social media and interactions. You describe just sort of a "metastore".
Maybe a review store site could work better with activity pub.
Reading the post, I found what I really want right now: a federated review platform.
Too many times I want to look for a product, and has to look into a reddit thread to see a recommendation.
There should be one, right? Where is it? -
Reading the post, I found what I really want right now: a federated review platform.
Too many times I want to look for a product, and has to look into a reddit thread to see a recommendation.
There should be one, right? Where is it?Reading the post, I found what I really want right now: a federated review platform.
[email protected] is a general review site. It currently covers media but, if you can get the data in (SKUs?) I can't see a reason it couldn't cover other products.
-
There is absolutely nothing "simple" about that. It sounds simple, but what does "someone has purchased a product" actually mean, in technical terms?
Let's start basic, since this is a proposal about a federated system, there are instances. Who runs these and why? Does ever seller run an instance? can there be users/customers on those? if not, who runs the customer-instances? Who defines what a product is, and are products like communities? or more like posts? how do you correlate different sellers selling the same item, where a review would obviously apply to both? can you review a shop or seller? Are delivery services their own "entitty" and can you review those, too? When you purchase an item
Now without any answers to any of those question, let's just go to the next level. Where are the reviews stored? in the instance where the item is sold (possibly owned by the shop)? or with the user? if it's with the user, how does a webserver displaying an item find all the reviews for it? Does this differ between reviews for items and reviews of shops/sellers?
If a review is stored on the instance of the seller, he can just add an entry to the database stating "user x purchased item y", and the review is valid. If the reviews are stored with the user, he can spin up an instance, and create a bunch of users there who can leave reviews, because he can mark sales as "valid" as the seller, no matter if there was any item and/or money exchanged.
I wrote all of this thinking about the classic sellers attempt at "creating good reviews to boost a product", but there is the opposite threat of review-bombing (might be a competing product or seller, or you just don't like pink shirts and decide to review-bomb those): How you protect against those has similarities, but reverses the roles essentially. Sellers are now the "target", and reviewers the "threat".
Aaaand this all is just about reviews, which have no monetary value. The platforms main goal would be to deal with physical items, exchanged for real money, and creating physical effects (like shipping). All those have to also be secured in a much more robust way. If a fake review or two slip through the cracks, who cares. But if just one valuable item goes missing (or is never shipped), or the payment for it, that's immediately a problem.
Ur gonna hate what I say next but it is the solution to all the trust issues. Monero. U can use the transaction on the blockchain to verify payments, reviews, etc.
I would suppose the instance gets a 1% cut of products sold on its platform incentivising it to be better than the other instances. U solve the adding fake reviews thing by a review requiring a transaction on the xmr blockchain u can solve the removing issue since anyone can prove that a review was removed in bad faith (obviously u want to retain the right to remove reviews with people saying awful shit).
Since everything is federated u can design it so there is 0 cost to using a different instance hence an instance acting in bad faith will lose its 1% cut and thus gives it a strong incentive to behave.
If u wanna get real creative u could do a system of federated logistics where u track items with cryptographic signatures. Each logistics actor signs for the product from the previous logistics actor until the original customer recieves the product at which point funds are released to vendor and delivery. This system would allow package tracking through a decentralised logistics systems (can assign fault for loss to the actor at fault) can allow actors to specialise for a location/route and take advantage of economies of scale.
-
So online farmers/flea market?
flea market
-
Reading the post, I found what I really want right now: a federated review platform.
[email protected] is a general review site. It currently covers media but, if you can get the data in (SKUs?) I can't see a reason it couldn't cover other products.
Thanks a lot! Bummer that it is primarily for media.
I wish it had more publicity/popularity, is there any way I can help? -
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.
Decentralized sales platforms would just suck to use, in general. The Amazon problem is likely something that can only be solved by the legislative processes of the countries it operates in.
-
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.
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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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, [email protected] 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.
-
Thanks a lot! Bummer that it is primarily for media.
I wish it had more publicity/popularity, is there any way I can help?It's not a bunker per se, it is just that, if you are a review platform, the easiest initial targets would be Goodreads, IMDb, etc. Other types of stuff to review may take a little longer. However, if you can get access to a source of unique IDs, it may be possible to import the information. As it is written in Python there will be knowledgeable folks around who can better advise on this. I'd suggest post about it here: [email protected]. See what other people think about it.
-
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.
Instead of Amazon. Id do fediverse equivalent of Craigslist and Facebook marketplace. Which technically exists in. Europe it just needs to be imported to the US
-
Instead of Amazon. Id do fediverse equivalent of Craigslist and Facebook marketplace. Which technically exists in. Europe it just needs to be imported to the US
As you said, it exists. You can just clone it from codeberg and run it. Here's an article about it https://wedistribute.org/2024/08/flohmarkt-federated-market/
-
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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] 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, [email protected] 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.
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.
-
Decentralized sales platforms would just suck to use, in general. The Amazon problem is likely something that can only be solved by the legislative processes of the countries it operates in.
I agree on the need for legilature. I strongly disagree on the scam. You dont have massive csam on peertube either because it has manual federation. Everyone who runs a business knows that its much more important to not get sued than to sell stuff. Big difference between small businesses and large ones btw.
-
I think the biggest issue is that if you already need to separate payments, returns, shipping, etc... you're left with a shop that also advertises products for other shops, possibly competitors. Then the question becomes... why bother federating at all?
I think it'd be better to set up a FOSS shopping platform, eg something that competes with WooCommerce or the likes. That's significantly easier from a financial and legal perspective, and I think it's an easier sell to actual merchants (why pay a license for that shit, use this one for freeee). Then once you have that running, you could think about optional federation as an addition to an already well-functioning platform.
I used woocommerce in the past. Its not that complicated. Woocommerce is open source from what I read: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/woocommerce-review/ i would have to check the source but implementing federation would be quite trivial i guess.
Why bother federating:
You advertise for your partners, not competitors. This is done already but manually by reselling. This would just expedite the process. The only part that is not yet clear to me is if the shop advertises something from another shop and clearly says, only sale processing through website, not fulfillment, if that would also make it that the legal warranty is done by the downstream vendor. Processing returns also is trivial from a technical perspective. Its just the legal one that keeps me guessing atm.
-
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.
Instances are websites.
-
Instances are websites.
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.
-
As you said, it exists. You can just clone it from codeberg and run it. Here's an article about it https://wedistribute.org/2024/08/flohmarkt-federated-market/
I'm having a *someone should do it just not me" moment. It looks like each instance is for different European country. Wonder if it would be for individual States
