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?

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[–] Illecors@lemmy.cafe 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

[–] Anafroj@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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").

[–] mythic_tartan@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

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.

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