Buying from an alternative ecommerce site usually sucks: you have to register for every website, enter your address, payment information and other information, they may leak data or store it improperly, you may not know the reputation of the website or business, you can’t easily compare products with other vendors and more. Amazon and ebay offer a centralized good experience and you know you can trust them with your purchase. They benefit the consumer by aggregating many businesses so it fosters competition lowering prices but they have so much power and they have done some anti consumer moves. Their fees could also be a problem. The same way mastodon offers a viable alternative to the deadbird platform and slice power to small instances while getting a better user experience. (And lemmy to Reddit.) A fediverse version of ecommerce could perhaps be viable: federated ecommerce that aggregates small business shops, handle the user details and let the business access it when you hit buy. Activity pub to communicate the listings and purchase orders. I am not a programmer and don’t know the technical implementations of it. So what do you think?

    • Ferminho@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Looks good. While it looks more oriented towards a second-hand marketplace, its concepts can be extended to include business-to-consumer interactions as well. A mix of these systems could enhance the marketplace ecosystem’s versatility and usefulness. Thanks for sharing the proposal

      • silverpill@mitra.social
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        1 year ago

        @Ferminho @maegul This proposal describes a very simple marketplace, and some things were intentionally left out. However, it is based on Valueflows system which can be used to describe many different economic processes, including planning, production and transportation:

        https://www.valueflo.ws/introduction/core/

        So developers may use object types and properties defined there if they want to build something more complicated. And social interactions can be represented as standard ActivityPub activities. I think Valueflows and ActivityPub nicely complement each other.

  • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    I think this is a bad idea. Not to be a downer but commercialism is what is rotting the web. Bringing that cancer to the Fediverse would be asking for the same.

  • persolb@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I’ve worked on payment systems. It is very hard to federate unless something like Stripe is used for actual payment.

    Credit card companies simply won’t interface with you unless you prove their data is safe. It isn’t a process that scales well.

    Brick and mortar companies get around this by having payment terminals which are insanely locked down. (Which is also why those terminals mostly suck)

    • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Payment terminal aren’t as locked down as you think.

      They are shitty because manufacturers do the bare minimum and always ask for exceptions (and they often are granted).

      Processors only want as much terminal as possible out there to make more money.

    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      My personal pipe dream is we swing back to a world where people buy in brick and mortar. Online shopping has stolen the soul from the buying experience.

      More choice is not necessarily better. Buy local. See your money back in your community. Even shopping at “The Gap” at least part of your purchase is going to local employees that then go out and put the money into your community.

      Saying this as someone who loves the convenience of Amazon… Fuck Amazon.

      I’m curious when a challenger emerges and how.

      • some_guy@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        You can shop online and still buy local. I’m not sure why you’re convinced this is an either/or scenario.

        Personally I don’t have the time for a ton of brick-and-mortar shopping and my work requires specialized materials that aren’t made locally but often do require a bit of “shopping around.”

      • Omniraptor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        Nationalize them 😳

        No seriously I think companies that provide such basic logistics services should be under public control. Amazon’s statistics/planning department is basically our (better) version of the Soviet gosplan agency. Yes the investors would be sad, yes they are also the ruling class but a man can dream

              • niisyth@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                Considering the size of the country, and the margins it works with, it works quite well. Well enough that Amazon itself uses USPS for deliveries. Plus there’s a lot of additional work that USPS does. Like shipping to places that just don’t make any fiscal sense but are essential for that remote community. Shipping live chicks under a certain amount of age.

                And no private company would do this coz it won’t give the most profits but the service greatly benefits the populace as a whole. (Which preaching to the choir since you’re on Lemmy vs Reddit when the Reddit experience is a lot smoother for the layman right now but also fully profit oriented.)

  • Cam@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Cryptocurrencies need to be the main payment method, such as Monero, Bitcoin, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.

    • andruid@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I am biased against proof of work coins personally so ETH would be my preference. Otherwise we’re just contributing further to climate change.

      In your opinion, why should crypto be the primary payment method for a project like this?

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Where do you people buy crypto? I made a coinbase account but those fees are insane. I’m not paying that shit.

      • Cam@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There are many exchanges out there. Usually the KYC exchanges are cheaper in fees. I like Kraken since they got Monero.