haui_lemmy
@haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 1 week ago:
I don’t follow, sorry. In the meantime I put up an instance. Check out freebay.giftedmc.com
The project is pretty small but I’m fairly confident it will grow.
I’ll test it for some time and thing about pro’s and cons of working with this project instead of forking or building something new.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 1 week ago:
Keep your rhetoric. Neither did you show issues nor are there any other folks who were called naysayers because except you, most people were just constructive. Its not hard to do, try it some time.
But now get off of my feed. Byee
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
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.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
I used woocommerce in the past. Its not that complicated. Woocommerce is open source from what I read: www.forbes.com/advisor/…/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.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
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.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
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.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
As you said, it exists. You can just clone it from codeberg and run it. Here’s an article about it wedistribute.org/…/flohmarkt-federated-market/
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Good point!
The mall was still centralized and most shops didnt have their own place and a stall ij the mall but I can totally see where you’re coming from.
It might be a good idea to keep this in mind if this ever becomes reality and we need marketing ideas. :)
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Thank you for this friendly and encouraging offer. This goes a long way sowing trust. I feel a lot more positive about looking into it now. Have a nice weekend.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
You’re missing that these points have already been adressed in a lot of other comments and have been stated way more constructively.
Of course having a whole logistics setup in place will be far superior to only doing dropshipping. But this is a whole different (additional) project. It absolutely has it is place. What I’m dismissing is the claim that the idea is dependent on somehow cloning the arguably much more expensive and complex parts of amazons business.
Again, i do agree that amazon has a huge machinery in place. But I also wish to discuss things without being treated dismissively myself.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
I’m very happy you reveal your actual intent by personally attacking me instead of taking the hint. Good bye.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
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.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Very much decentralized. Just with the caveat that payment decentrlization needs its own project. Successful foss software projects typically have a narrow scope and concentrate on them. Feel free to do the payment part in an adjacent project so that we dont have yo rely on stripe and paypal.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
I wont correct you since I’m not the authority. I think your point is valid.
In my idea, the shop you visit - lets call them computer store - will sell you a range of computers, some of their own assembly, with normal margin, like its done today. What changes is that they partner with another shop (or many) that sell adjacent products. That could be a desk for the computer, software or other products. Those products are manually federated, ie the partners have been vetted by computer store. If you buy the computer, the seller makes their typical margin. If you buy the desk, no matter if additionally or exclusively, they will only manage the order process and payment. The rest will be done over classical dropshipping. Meaning the original desk seller will handle everything after the sale has taken place. Same as amzon does with many of their products, same as aliexpress and ebay but better than ebay because the computer store owner keeps control of the vendors they partner with. They receive a small fee only which would not be enough on its own but they arguably dont have any work besides processing the order.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Since this was another round of no additional input, I’ll repeat myself too:
People have already suggested that. But thanks for participating.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
I fully agree that this would be a valid application. The reason any company doesnt adopt such strategies is the cost of pioneering it. Most companies who spearhead such an idea want it to pay off -> proprietary. Also most people are specialized in their industry. Developing an app is not native to food industry for example.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
There you go. Glad you like it.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
You obviously didnt get the point. These stores already exist and they’re not big.
I do get the specialization idea and I think its valid. i just dont see how to make that federated and why only for books as I’m not talking about a service, really. Its a network.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Glad you found something that works for you mate. Still, this corpo-soft-lock-in-shit isn’t cool man. I get it, you want it easy and reliable. But this aint it. The stuff I’m talking about here is kind of the middle inbetween local seller and wholesale chain store. Thats why I like the idea.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Thats an interesting bit of information. Thanks! :)
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
I’ll have to look into it at some point. The crypto bros could have also been hired by banks at this point to burn crypto as comoetition. I would not touch it with a 10 foot pole before extensive personally conducted research. which is unrealistic even for myself but especially for everyone else.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
That would probably jumpstart the adoption. Good point.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
I mean that definitely sounds like a cool idea, regardless of the drop shipping idea.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Your comment brings no ounce of new ideas or criticisms to the table, overlooks all the pros and cons already mentioned and assumes you know a lot more thane for example. I run businesses for 15 years, do ethical business since 10 yrs and am thinking from a position of experience.
The reason I dont present myself in a way that screams competence is because this is lemmy and we dont need this stuff. I like spitballing ideas and push new projects for the benefit of the people.
But feel free to suggest constructive things.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Thanks for explaining. I appreciate the honesty and now I see your post in a different light.
That said, I’m currently selfemployed with a small ethical it company and do open source development and project management as well as ngo work on the side.
You could argue that I’m a hopeless idealist, although I have made millions with my projects in the past (which I of course did not keep).
I’d say I have a keen sense for opportunities with a certain stubbornness to do the right thing and break down what I perceive as wrong.
If I can get 10 vendors to get off amazon and provide good service for their customers, I’m glad. Everyone on top I’m stoked.
So yes, a hobby if you will.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Thats a very good point. Thank you. I dont disagree on any of it but I think there could be alternatives to some parts.
There are physical syndicate-owned places that store collective things in them. Also, we are talking businesses here. A collective warehouse of say 100 sellers around a small city or bit town would not be easily being held hostage.
But these are details, although very interesting. Its very good long term for making such a project more resiliant and competitive.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Thats actually a very long interesting point. Thanks for mentioning it
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Because this does not work in reality. You have many mechanics that are hidden to the casual user but play a significant role from a vendor standpoint.
You have ui change which means you slow down the users purchase due to them finding buttons and informarion, leading to similar websites which is bad for variety and gives corporare unified marketplaces an edge
Then you have trust. Leaving a website you have learned to trust means you have to check if the next website is trustworthy which isnt feasible.
Unified order overview and checkout so you know what you bought and when its coming. Especially for a complex multi stage order.
Unified payment of course as well as claims, returns, etc.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Thats pretty straightfoward. I like it. Combined shipping can make sense. Thanks for participating.
- Comment on Can we please make a viable (federated!) amazon alternative? I have an idea! 2 weeks ago:
Its possible that this is pretty sttaightforward. My thought on payment is stripe and paypal atm since they’re already established. They also handle this.