Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea!

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com⁩ to ⁨fediverse@lemmy.world⁩

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.

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reddwarf@feddit.nl ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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!

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- haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Lol

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timewarp@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I think the closest you can come is open source an entire business, from business plans, architecture, systems, payment processing, etc.

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Creat@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
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.

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- Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  The reviews are also a massive point, and would be inherently untrustworthy in a federated version.
  
  The reviews on Amazon are so often very obviously bots, that they aren’t really trustworthy at all. What the hell is inherently untrustworthy about federation? 🤨
  
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  - Creat@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    But you’re saying yourself that those are “obviously bots”. It’s easy to ignore those. And just to be clear, I really did mean the reviews, and not the score (where the skew is less transparent).
    
    Everyone leaving a review has to have an account somewhere in the federated network. This includes seeing up an instance just to use it for review bots, or fake votes on something. Obviously there’s is defederation and other mechanisms, and I’m sure there are ways to improve the situation. But the whole base setup is just inherently much harder to get into a trustworthy position. Even the common centralized sites (not just Amazon) have trouble getting it under control when they can “see” will the related data, for finding outliers and such. I’m just saying it’s an even harder proposition.
    
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- haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  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.
  
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  - Creat@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Condescension was not the intention at all. The fact that you mention logistics only as a foot note is what lead me to believe you really didn’t understand, and it was just meant as an explanation. Amazon is just scale, in every aspect, and I don’t think that can be achieved with a federated approach in the physical retail world.
    
    As for being constructive, you can be constructive by talking someone out of an idea. I really don’t believe there’s any viability in the idea, no matter how much I wish there was. I personally value my time, so I assume others do as well. I consider saving someones time incredibly constructive, but that only applies if you intend to pursue the idea to actually get somewhere “real” with it, let’s say reaching “profit” or improving participants existing profits.
    
    You might enjoy spending your time figuring out solutions here, maybe you see it as an economic experiment or hobby project, so it’s fun no matter the outcome. I’m that case my comment really isn’t constructive in your situation, and I’m sorry.
    
    Rest assured I didn’t comment out of malice.
    
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realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Let’s call it Frontpage

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