Openbazaar needs your support

[bbc.reporter]

After 6 years, it appears that this implies that the cryptospace does not need a decentralized marketplace. There were also people in the community that described Openbazaar as something similar to a webbrowser for a very small segment of users. Thy are slowly proven to be correct.

It needs your support.


Over the past several months, we have been relying on OpenBazaar’s donation funds to support these infrastructure costs, but those funds will be depleted shortly. At OB1, we have desperately tried to secure more funding to not only maintain OpenBazaar’s support costs, but execute the next phase of the protocol that we believe can unlock explosive user adoption. Sadly, we have been unsuccessful and have no choice but to discontinue these supporting services.
We would like to apologize for the short notice, which is the result of last minute funding plans falling-through. We will do everything in our power to try and extend the window so that users can safely withdraw their funds from their OpenBazaar and Haven wallets.

If you have been positively impacted by OpenBazaar or you believe in the mission & vision of a global decentralized marketplace, we need your financial support today. Please consider donating at the following addresses:
BTC: 3JuykfZRbCepzkVLLseSaiufDJ5AC8ae8R
LTC: MTTEVR5pdAHJNmmFNzVjaQhGB9qLkHLk7m
ZEC: t1UEN9mf9hMccwTznqBoJFh2FERgyuMJ2oA
BCH: qq9favzja34zywrp222cwrx4fny9fe64pyaxl5dvar
ETH: 0x71A6e8B0580104dacA0633a9BA6F90181C6F40a5

Read in full https://medium.com/@therealopenbazaar/openbazaar-needs-your-support-75fe7e117ad1

[Yogee]

In those six years, how many potential users did they reach? Other than Bitcointalk, I don't see them in any forums or social media. Perhaps marketing is one major issue? They can build it with the most advance features and make it easy to use even for kids and grandmas but if only a few people know about them, I doubt they'll survive.

At OB1, we have desperately tried to secure more funding to not only maintain OpenBazaar’s support costs, but execute the next phase of the protocol that we believe can unlock explosive user adoption.

What actually prevented them from building this in the first place? They sounded like other hype projects full of promises to be honest.

......
What's happening to Openbazaar is almost the same to what's happening to decentralized exchanges. If not for Uniswap, we would still hear the same issue of no one else is using them.

[mk4]

OpenBazaar made a nice attempt. Buy after a few years of peripherally watching their platform, it doesn't seem like they moved that much forward unfortunately; and quite surprisingly too since I don't think they even have a close competitor.

Imo it seems like their time is cut short unfortunately, but I applaud them for their attempt.

[TGD]

The idea is great but the only problem was the team failed to attract user on there platform that result to lack of items available on there marketplace. Additionally, Huge online merchant is now accepting cryptocurrency which gives this project a big hurdle to become a first mover on cryptocurrency online commerce.

I hope that open bazaar offers a token of appreciation for those people who will donate on this project so that they can encourage more to danate.

[Darker45]

This is sad news but it is what it is. Openbazaar must have fallen short of something for failing to reach the level of adoption they set as goal. It may be that they are indeed not doing well in promoting their marketplace. Or perhaps people are simply more attracted to larger marketplaces with much more merchants offering a much wider array of products, regardless of their being centralized. Or probably the larger market likes the idea of online shopping without the need to download and install apps. There are just so many possible reasons behind. But the bottom-line is that they failed to capture their target market.

They need to do some "what went right, what went wrong" sessions if they wish to move forward and are able to gather the necessary amount. They cannot just count on "community support" alone because the community has preferences and taste and likes and dislikes and all. Even if they are able to gather sufficient funds out of donations to continue operating, without significant changes or improvement, this thing will eventually happen again in the future.

[Lorence.xD]

The idea is great but the only problem was the team failed to attract user on there platform that result to lack of items available on there marketplace. Additionally, Huge online merchant is now accepting cryptocurrency which gives this project a big hurdle to become a first mover on cryptocurrency online commerce.

I hope that open bazaar offers a token of appreciation for those people who will donate on this project so that they can encourage more to danate.

The other reason might be that they are not making a solution, if you stroll in Tor browser, markets like this exist although not organized it works the same. If they make it public, they will be stomped by pioneer markets like Amazon, Alibaba or eBay. The idea was good but they have a strong competition and I think that is one of the factors aside from no traction when it comes to advertisement.

[hatshepsut93]

BCH: qq9favzja34zywrp222cwrx4fny9fe64pyaxl5dvar

I'll never donate to anyone who lists bcash or bsv, they are just legitimizing these scamcoins that want to destroy Bitcoin.

But even if they didn't, I still wouldn't donate to OpenBazaar, I don't see how can they turn things around, at best it would just allow them to operate a tiny bit more. Their model isn't working, or maybe people just don't view Bitcoin as money right now, and until this changes, we won't see any boom in Bitcoin-based commerce.

[seoincorporation]

If Openbazaar needs support it's because they did a bad business engine. They should change a nice fee for each sale, that fee would help to make the networks and the infrastructure grow all the way.

Another good option could be to make a token just to capitalize on the project. Looks like that option works nice for legit services.

[bbc.reporter]

OpenBazaar made a nice attempt. Buy after a few years of peripherally watching their platform, it doesn't seem like they moved that much forward unfortunately; and quite surprisingly too since I don't think they even have a close competitor.

Imo it seems like their time is cut short unfortunately, but I applaud them for their attempt.

They certainly deserve the applause. However, would you give them support by donating to their address or do you reckon they should stop and accept defeat?

[mk4]

They certainly deserve the applause. However, would you give them support by donating to their address or do you reckon they should stop and accept defeat?

I personally wouldn't because I'd rather allocate my donations to better causes, though I wouldn't suggest against donating to them because they're trying to create something that could potentially be decent; though unfortunately I'm not seeing good signs concerning the likeliness of their success.

Ultimately, I think they should keep trying, but they definitely need to step up their game tenfold if they want to survive.

[boyptc]

They lack marketing and PR. Looking at their website, they seem to be upgrading and migrating to another business. Why they don't post it on their main website?

Is this service below going to close too as it's also their mobile app?

--> https://gethaven.app/

[pooya87]

After 6 years, it appears that this implies that the cryptospace does not need a decentralized marketplace.

i disagree. there is a dire need for decentralized marketplace the same way there is for decentralized exchanges. and they both suffer from the same issues, people want easy to use, already tested and working solutions. they are too lazy to make any efforts, contribute,... they just want the end result.
you can always see how someone is complaining about how they got ripped off by some centralized service but when you give them the alternative solution they are too lazy to use it.

i haven't followed OpenBazaar project closely but i think they first have to explain what they did with the $5 million they raised 2 years ago and i believe they even ran an ICO and sold useless tokens. that's ignoring the donations they may have received.
so where did all that money go to?

[logfiles]

Despite being decentralized and decentralization being what everyone buzzes about in this crypto world, the unpopularity of Openbazaar reminds of that bisq, the only real decentralized, open source peer to peer crypto exchange I know about. Now one would expect people to make a beeline for such services but to my surprise, people instead decide to ignore them and instead go for centralized exchanges and marketplaces.

Something is definitely wrong. Maybe being decentralized, nobody cares to advertise them like you would see with centralized platforms. People get to know about platforms like Openbazaar when they are deeply engaged in forums like this one but aside from that on the outside world even when just browsing different webpages. Chances of knowing about them is way so low

[theskillzdatklls]

Despite being decentralized and decentralization being what everyone buzzes about in this crypto world, the unpopularity of Openbazaar reminds of that bisq, the only real decentralized, open source peer to peer crypto exchange I know about. Now one would expect people to make a beeline for such services but to my surprise, people instead decide to ignore them and instead go for centralized exchanges and marketplaces.

Something is definitely wrong. Maybe being decentralized, nobody cares to advertise them like you would see with centralized platforms. People get to know about platforms like Openbazaar when they are deeply engaged in forums like this one but aside from that on the outside world even when just browsing different webpages. Chances of knowing about them is way so low

People seem to value convenience, customer support and all that much more than decentralized things as I've seen being in crypto going on a better part of a decade now. In principle, I love all open-sourced projects including OpenBazaar.

I'll get MintDice to sponsor you guys a free blog article, explaining your project and asking for support over there. I value what you guys are trying to do, I hope it works out in the long run, even if society doesn't realize it yet.

[leea-1334]

I thought all these defi apps are showing that DEXs ARE much needed and very popular? I know Uniswap and all those are not exactly decentralized but that is anyway how most DEXs are limited in architecture, that there are nothing but non-custodial platforms.

Hard to support with money,,, you just have to work on making it easier for people to use that is all. And marketing?

[Wind_FURY]

They lack marketing and PR. Looking at their website, they seem to be upgrading and migrating to another business. Why they don't post it on their main website?

Is this service below going to close too as it's also their mobile app?

--> https://gethaven.app/

I believe more PR, and marketing won't help them. Simply, a decentralized/censorship-resistant, peer to peer marketplace for LEGAL items can't compete with its centralized, but more efficient counterparts.

Develop a censorship-resistant, anonymous dark market, it will have a higher probabilty for success.

[NotATether]

And what happens to the people who can't shop on centralized marketplaces because they don't have bank accounts or credit cards? They'll be thrown under the bus. It's not like everyone who owns bitcoin and shops on a decentralized store also owns necessary banking assets for centralized shopping.

Personally I'm sad to hear Openbazaar is having financing troubles, but since the program is open-source, even if it shuts down, someone with enough money can launch it again.

If I were them I would pause upgrading infrastructure and run an affiliate program to bring more customers to them. And make the program anonymous without asking for personal details so you retain the maximum number of affiliates who want to advertise Openbazaar for them. So that there's no need for Openbazaar to do and pay for the advertising themselves.

[gentlemand]

Idealism - meet reality.

I've probably downloaded it 4-5 times and gave up in disgust a short while later each time. Not even having a viable form of searching is just bizarre, or perhaps all of the sellers fell away.

Most people don't want to spend BTC. Those who do want to be able to actually find what they want to buy. If I remember rightly for the few items I found many had prices that clearly hadn't been updated since forever, or perhaps they were just very expensive.

If it fails it fails. Just like Bitcoin itself, if you become a charity case then you have no future.

As above, the only real future is dark market stuff for now at least.

[Jating]

I think it's been on the lifeline for two years now, and this year we have witnessed it's call for help. True we need this kind of 'decentralised' store, but the truth it, nobody is actually using it. They are even comparable to to DEX today, as much as we have been calling traders to used it, actually only minority are into it, hence low liquidity, as compare to let's say CEX like Binance.

I know it's sad to hear that they might be closing in the future if no external help comes in. But it is what it is and I doubt that they will got the needed donation to continue with their platform. Again, this is evident two years ago, but for now it is not viable. And one factor is that it is there are a lot of limitations, and that makes crypto users stay away from their services.

[Taskford]

The idea is great but the only problem was the team failed to attract user on there platform that result to lack of items available on there marketplace. Additionally, Huge online merchant is now accepting cryptocurrency which gives this project a big hurdle to become a first mover on cryptocurrency online commerce.

I hope that open bazaar offers a token of appreciation for those people who will donate on this project so that they can encourage more to danate.

The other reason might be that they are not making a solution, if you stroll in Tor browser, markets like this exist although not organized it works the same. If they make it public, they will be stomped by pioneer markets like Amazon, Alibaba or eBay. The idea was good but they have a strong competition and I think that is one of the factors aside from no traction when it comes to advertisement.

I don't see them doing a marketing campaign here or in outside so far and maybe this is the reason why they didn't been notice much by new people who's seeking the same service as they offer, maybe they should pause for a while and think about better strategy since if they accept this defeat for sure it will be a huge loss for them.

[Potato Chips]

The article is outdated, they were able to secure funds for until this year so those supporting services to OB and their app won't shutdown in Oct 1. The end game doesn't change though, unless they can fix what they lacked-- enough users/working business model.  Relying on donations to run without enough userbase won't work either as it is unsustainable.

BREAKING NEWS!

An anonymous donor has agreed to cover the costs to run OpenBazaar infrastructure through at least the end of the year.

and looks like OB1 won't be the main dev?

The future of @openbazaar will be more independence from @OB1Company. More news on that soon.

[Shasha80]

The development of Openbazaar is quite bad, even though a marketplace like Openbazaar is really needed. Because there are rarely
marketplaces that accept cryptocurrency as a payment option, Openbazaar marketing team should have a good promotional strategy.
So Openbazaar can be better known by the cryptocurrency community, I'm sure there are still many who don't know Openbazaar.
With a good promotion I am sure there will be many users who use Openbazaar to spend their crypto.

[stompix]

i disagree. there is a dire need for decentralized marketplace the same way there is for decentralized exchanges. and they both suffer from the same issues, people want easy to use, already tested and working solutions. they are too lazy to make any efforts, contribute,... they just want the end result.

If there was a real need for such a market and only one option like openbazaar people would have already flooded it, both sellers and clients, thing which didn't happen

you can always see how someone is complaining about how they got ripped off by some centralized service but when you give them the alternative solution they are too lazy to use it.

Yeah, and for every guy that complains centralized services has ripped him off and not offered a refund, there is also one that got scammed in a decentralized service.
It's not laziness, it's the natural fear of customers that don't want to buy something from a stranger without the possibility of a refund or customer support, it's a seller paradise but a buyer's nightmare. I for example pay a premium when buying electronics from a shop compared to others and many like me do this because they don't ask any question when you return a product, they have free of charge pick-up on returns or warranty issues and delivery and they are reimbursing you in maximum 24hours. They are more expensive but they also have half of the market share at least.

Oh, and don't start with the escrow and mediator feature.
I am a customer I'm sending you back the product give me back my money, no mediator, no escrow, these are the laws in the EU!

And what happens to the people who can't shop on centralized marketplaces because they don't have bank accounts or credit cards? They'll be thrown under the bus. It's not like everyone who owns bitcoin and shops on a decentralized store also owns necessary banking assets for centralized shopping.

You don't need a bank account to buy from most online platforms here, nor a credit card, all platforms I know, including chain stores are offering cash on delivery payment.

[kryptqnick]

OpenBazaar made a nice attempt. Buy after a few years of peripherally watching their platform, it doesn't seem like they moved that much forward unfortunately; and quite surprisingly too since I don't think they even have a close competitor.

Imo it seems like their time is cut short unfortunately, but I applaud them for their attempt.

I think that OpenBazaar might have faced the trouble of Nintendo's Virtual Boy. It was basically the first VR headset, oriented on the mass market. The idea was great, the implementation has serious troubles. Most importantly, they just did it too early. VR indeed found its audience in the 21st century, but at the end of the previous century the society wasn't ready. OpenBazaar seems like a cool decentralized platform that both implemented decentralization and allowed decentralized payment options (and perhaps only cryptos, no centralized payment options as far as I see). It was too innovative, not perfectly implemented and too early in the world where most are fine with centralized money and markets.

[Ucy]

Thought the marketplace had a deal with Bitcoincash few years ago or so?
Anyway, I think for a decentralized marketplace to work well in Crypto space it needs to be built within some sort of VM cryptocurrency ecosystem and made to interact with other decentralized applications/businesses. More like DeFi on Ethereum network.
A Cryptocurrency Network needs to encourage/incentive a thriving and sustainable economy built around it. You could have lots of interdependent Decentralized Applications interacting with one another in their ecosystems rather than hoping to compete with traditional businesses.
 Things will be much easier for cryptocurrency developers once they know/understand how to run a Nation. A Decentralized Crypto Network is more like a Nation.

[boyptc]

They lack marketing and PR. Looking at their website, they seem to be upgrading and migrating to another business. Why they don't post it on their main website?

Is this service below going to close too as it's also their mobile app?

--> https://gethaven.app/

I believe more PR, and marketing won't help them. Simply, a decentralized/censorship-resistant, peer to peer marketplace for LEGAL items can't compete with its centralized, but more efficient counterparts.

Develop a censorship-resistant, anonymous dark market, it will have a higher probabilty for success.

Just like those "decentralized" projects, they're more with PR but well yeah, guess it's no longer helpful on their part.

BREAKING NEWS!

An anonymous donor has agreed to cover the costs to run OpenBazaar infrastructure through at least the end of the year.

Well see what's next after this year.

[tomahawk9]

The article is outdated, they were able to secure funds for until this year so those supporting services to OB and their app won't shutdown in Oct 1. The end game doesn't change though, unless they can fix what they lacked-- enough users/working business model.  Relying on donations to run without enough userbase won't work either as it is unsustainable.

BREAKING NEWS!

An anonymous donor has agreed to cover the costs to run OpenBazaar infrastructure through at least the end of the year.

everyone in the cryptosphere cares so much about OpenBazaar that this tweet received an staggering 200 likes! *sarcasm*

next year there'll be another cry for help & donations 🙄 they should just let it die, it's very clear that after what, 4 years now, no one uses this thing and no one (except that one person who donated) cares about a decentralized marketplace, at least for now. Majority of people nowadays, not just from the general public but also cryptocurrency users, would rather put their trust on centralized services than in things like Bitify or OpenBazaar, and i'm certainly one of those when it comes to spending BTC to buy products.

[Ucy]

The article is outdated, they were able to secure funds for until this year so those supporting services to OB and their app won't shutdown in Oct 1. The end game doesn't change though, unless they can fix what they lacked-- enough users/working business model.  Relying on donations to run without enough userbase won't work either as it is unsustainable.

BREAKING NEWS!

An anonymous donor has agreed to cover the costs to run OpenBazaar infrastructure through at least the end of the year.

everyone in the cryptosphere cares so much about OpenBazaar that this tweet received an staggering 200 likes! *sarcasm*

next year there'll be another cry for help & donations 🙄 they should just let it die, it's very clear that after what, 4 years now, no one uses this thing and no one (except that one person who donated) cares about a decentralized marketplace, at least for now. Majority of people nowadays, not just from the general public but also cryptocurrency users, would rather put their trust on centralized services than in things like Bitify or OpenBazaar, and i'm certainly one of those when it comes to spending BTC to buy products.

Well, it's not really about whether someone believes/cares about decentralized marketplaces/applications or not, it's about the sustaining the principles of Bitcoin like decentralization and its anti-fragility.  I would be seriously worried about a cryptocurrency filled with centralized marketplaces/exchanges/applications. They could corrupt and turn a cryptocurrency into centralized zombie.
It make no sense to flee a dictatorial country to a democratic one while supporting the dictatorial ideologies of the country in your newly adopted country.
I believe it won't be difficult atall to have a decentralized marketplace/exchanges/applications work very well on a decentralized cryptocurrency network.

[californiaquail]

After 6 years, it appears that this implies that the cryptospace does not need a decentralized marketplace. There were also people in the community that described Openbazaar as something similar to a webbrowser for a very small segment of users. Thy are slowly proven to be correct.

 

Hey bud I donated what I could, because as a crypto-marketplace owner, I feel your disarray, but I think this has nothing to do with decentralisation.

My best guess is that our industry is still in its "earning & learning & holding" phase, and certainly not the spending phase.



I started a Bitcoin luxury marketplace  back in 2016 when 1 btc was worth $600.
I would have never expected that $20k rally to happen so quickly. Neither its downfall.
A couple of years forward, we do have some users buying and selling art, or even luxury items in crypto, so that aspect of my bet turned out positive.

That being said, our overall numbers are nothing to brag about, and certainly worth walking into a VC with. Otherwise, my concept ( and yours ) would have been replicated a thousand times already, by people with way deeper pockets than ours.

I'm still positive there will be a vast market for crypto-marketplaces once Bitcoin's marketcap hits a certain threshold

I just don't think that threshold has yet been met, but, once that happens,we'll already have seniority, press, and trust, which ( in this industry ) is worth way more than any money you could spend.
There's no questions about it, when we met that threshold, I'll be the first customer of crypto marketplaces ( personally, I'll consider spending when it hits  $100k ) .

Because frankly, let's cut the B.S., even as founders, if we ask ourselves honestly, we'd rather hold onto our crypto than trying to spend it on whatever.



Anyway, I sent you $10 worth of BTC@blockchain.com/btc/tx/be8e3782c1cdda4c340725df5dde1142156e62ca59da4508c9ba69fca8da9c92 because I really believe you are in the right, and that you're doing something important, even though timing is not on our side.
 
That being said, let me know what you think, and I'd like to have a chat with you or whatever, I really like your mission.

[bbc.reporter]

The article is outdated, they were able to secure funds for until this year so those supporting services to OB and their app won't shutdown in Oct 1. The end game doesn't change though, unless they can fix what they lacked-- enough users/working business model.  Relying on donations to run without enough userbase won't work either as it is unsustainable.

BREAKING NEWS!

An anonymous donor has agreed to cover the costs to run OpenBazaar infrastructure through at least the end of the year.

and looks like OB1 won't be the main dev?

The future of @openbazaar will be more independence from @OB1Company. More news on that soon.

The tweet mentioned that the donation was only good for until the end of this year, however.

Also, this does not change the description that Openbazaar might be something similar to a webbrowser that is only wanted by a very small segment of users.

[theskillzdatklls]

The article is outdated, they were able to secure funds for until this year so those supporting services to OB and their app won't shutdown in Oct 1. The end game doesn't change though, unless they can fix what they lacked-- enough users/working business model.  Relying on donations to run without enough userbase won't work either as it is unsustainable.

BREAKING NEWS!

An anonymous donor has agreed to cover the costs to run OpenBazaar infrastructure through at least the end of the year.

everyone in the cryptosphere cares so much about OpenBazaar that this tweet received an staggering 200 likes! *sarcasm*

next year there'll be another cry for help & donations 🙄 they should just let it die, it's very clear that after what, 4 years now, no one uses this thing and no one (except that one person who donated) cares about a decentralized marketplace, at least for now. Majority of people nowadays, not just from the general public but also cryptocurrency users, would rather put their trust on centralized services than in things like Bitify or OpenBazaar, and i'm certainly one of those when it comes to spending BTC to buy products.

I think this is the wrong attitude. Supporting platforms like this means quite a bit to the success of Bitcoin. Designing something like this is also extremely difficult, so it will take them a lot of time. While the argument isn't the same, you could just use similar logic and say "there's no need for Bitcoin with centralized services like the dollar and euro providing great value as it is". It's simply not true or correct.

[mk4]

I think that OpenBazaar might have faced the trouble of Nintendo's Virtual Boy. It was basically the first VR headset, oriented on the mass market. The idea was great, the implementation has serious troubles. Most importantly, they just did it too early. VR indeed found its audience in the 21st century, but at the end of the previous century the society wasn't ready. OpenBazaar seems like a cool decentralized platform that both implemented decentralization and allowed decentralized payment options (and perhaps only cryptos, no centralized payment options as far as I see). It was too innovative, not perfectly implemented and too early in the world where most are fine with centralized money and markets.

OpenBazaar could be too early, but I think it's mostly that they haven't figured out the UI/UX problem. The masses are a lot more geared towards using the platforms that are easy to use, not necessarily using the best in terms of privacy and decentralization. It's the same exact reason why the masses are geared towards using centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance in contrast to non-custodial exchanges like Bisq and HodlHodl.

[pooya87]

If there was a real need for such a market and only one option like openbazaar people would have already flooded it, both sellers and clients, thing which didn't happen

having a need and doing something about it are different things though. usually people don't like change even if the new thing were better. that is one of the reasons why bitcoin adoption is so slow. but you made a good point about less customer security that i wasn't thinking about.

[imstillthebest]

The article is outdated, they were able to secure funds for until this year so those supporting services to OB and their app won't shutdown in Oct 1. The end game doesn't change though, unless they can fix what they lacked-- enough users/working business model.  Relying on donations to run without enough userbase won't work either as it is unsustainable.

BREAKING NEWS!

An anonymous donor has agreed to cover the costs to run OpenBazaar infrastructure through at least the end of the year.

everyone in the cryptosphere cares so much about OpenBazaar that this tweet received an staggering 200 likes! *sarcasm*

next year there'll be another cry for help & donations 🙄 they should just let it die, it's very clear that after what, 4 years now, no one uses this thing and no one (except that one person who donated) cares about a decentralized marketplace, at least for now. Majority of people nowadays, not just from the general public but also cryptocurrency users, would rather put their trust on centralized services than in things like Bitify or OpenBazaar, and i'm certainly one of those when it comes to spending BTC to buy products.

I think this is the wrong attitude. Supporting platforms like this means quite a bit to the success of Bitcoin. Designing something like this is also extremely difficult, so it will take them a lot of time.

nothing wrong with that . thats just his opinion and you also have yours so you should respect each other . i love everything that is decentralize and i obviously love the concept of this openbazar but il also be mad at them if they will only rely on donation to run thier business  . maybe there is something that they lack of and why people are not going back to use them or no new people that gets attracted to them  . cant you see there are sites that are also dying and have died down but we never see those sites ask for help  . they came up with this idea so they should have the ability to stand on thier own

[gentlemand]

OpenBazaar could be too early, but I think it's mostly that they haven't figured out the UI/UX problem. The masses are a lot more geared towards using the platforms that are easy to use, not necessarily using the best in terms of privacy and decentralization. It's the same exact reason why the masses are geared towards using centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance in contrast to non-custodial exchanges like Bisq and HodlHodl.

If Bitcoin ever is to be a currency I think it's going to be the final phase, not near the first. You've got to get through the speculation bit and get well into the store of value and then you might get a currency so they're crazily early.

I applaud the fact that it exists but it's clear there's little to no desire for it. And ultimately I myself can never see the point of a decentralised marketplace for vanilla goods. There's more hassle, more friction and no gain as far as I can tell. A buy is a one time thing I need fulfilling in the most convenient way. There's no philosophy tied to it.

Different for less developed countries so I hope the idea remains alive until its time comes. Could be a wait. Until then someone should be doing dark market stuff which is the true use case for now.

[Wind_FURY]

Idealism - meet reality.

I've probably downloaded it 4-5 times and gave up in disgust a short while later each time. Not even having a viable form of searching is just bizarre, or perhaps all of the sellers fell away.

Most people don't want to spend BTC. Those who do want to be able to actually find what they want to buy. If I remember rightly for the few items I found many had prices that clearly hadn't been updated since forever, or perhaps they were just very expensive.

If it fails it fails. Just like Bitcoin itself, if you become a charity case then you have no future.

People WILL USE Bitcoins if it is completely necessary.

Openbazaar didn't scale because it doesn't solve an inefficiency. Why would an ordinary person go through the inefficiency of buying Bitcoin to use Openbazaar? They can use Etsy and credit cards.

As above, the only real future is dark market stuff for now at least.

Yes, because Bitcoin solves an inefficiency for buying drugs from the internet drug dealers because credit cards can't be used. Few understand this.

[erikoy]

I'd better help the homeless and the likes rather than help the Openbazaar for their interest. It seems that saving humanity is more important than this project. Anyway, if there are people who tries to see the project worth it then you can possibly get donation from them. The last resort that you could do aside from getting donations if there are none who will going to donate and to make the platform come to the next phase then selling it to other individuals who will be interested to fund and develop the platform will do. I think it is not bad either than letting your platform closed due to short of funds or something at least you earn from it by selling the platform.

[stompix]

but you made a good point about less customer security that i wasn't thinking about.

Well, a lot of people focus on the wrong thing in business, that's why a lot of them failed.
I experienced this with the family business also, although we don't have that many choices when selling our products but in the end no matter how revolutionary your product is, no matter how good you think you are it's the clients that decide your fate, and sometimes it comes pretty fast.

Also, there is something people here should understand, the fact they are not really being objective when it comes to crypto projects.
Let's say that a new type of decentralized shop would make its way directly on the ETH blockchain, do you think it will get the same praise? Nope, a lot of bitcoiners will simply slam the idea just because it involves eth and not bitcoin, although it's still a decentralized shop. To be objective you have to see this from the point of the newcomers to crypto, which as gentlemand pointed out, are not really keen on even spending bitcoin, forget about using a certain platform for it.

Thought the marketplace had a deal with Bitcoincash few years ago or so?
Anyway, I think for a decentralized marketplace to work well in Crypto space it needs to be built within some sort of VM cryptocurrency ecosystem and made to interact with other decentralized applications/businesses. More like DeFi on Ethereum network.

O yeah, DeFi, let's throw a bit of hype on a dead project, what can actually Defi do for an online shop?

[gentlemand]

People WILL USE Bitcoins if it is completely necessary.

Of course but they will do their very best to resist and find alternatives to use until the completely necessary moment arrives. That doesn't make for a very vibrant user base. And it also chucks most discretionary purchases out the window. You will simply go without.

[target]

Sesen this project launched before 2016 and I think I still have it installed in my laptop. It wasn't updated since, I can't find people nearby using the project as well. They do have a competitor like the Bitbay Marketplace but even them Ithink also have a hard time getting people to build a community.

Openbazaar didn't try to launch a token as well and I guess, they could have succeeded if they just launched a token to build a community.  I don;t think its too late for it.

[7788bitcoin]

I hope that they will survive this crisis and the community will help them. I haven't used Openbazaar myself, but I've heard a lot about them.

I feel that they will survive the crisis and the donations start pouring in and some anonymous donor has agreed to cover their cost till the end of this year as per their social media profile and i hope they can find more donors to cover everything. Personally i never used them but i will download them and have a look at it. We need these markets to survive to have a fair market situation.

[pixie85]

I will not support them because I haven't used them at all.

Every time someone was talking about  it on the forum I kept opening their site but there really wans't anything that I liked or thought to be priced so competitively that I'd consider buying it.

I wish them all the best because no crypto business should go bankrupt, but if that is the market's judgement, so be it.

[cryptomaniac_xxx]

I hope that they will survive this crisis and the community will help them. I haven't used Openbazaar myself, but I've heard a lot about them.

I feel that they will survive the crisis and the donations start pouring in and some anonymous donor has agreed to cover their cost till the end of this year as per their social media profile and i hope they can find more donors to cover everything. Personally i never used them but i will download them and have a look at it. We need these markets to survive to have a fair market situation.

Right as per their tweet:



https://twitter.com/openbazaar/status/1310252576848437248

And this,



https://twitter.com/openbazaar/status/1310743888341200896

So this is good news already, yes I myself haven't used it all, but in our own little way, let's support this decentralised market.

[Wind_FURY]

People WILL USE Bitcoins if it is completely necessary.

Of course but they will do their very best to resist and find alternatives to use until the completely necessary moment arrives. That doesn't make for a very vibrant user base. And it also chucks most discretionary purchases out the window. You will simply go without.

Because of opportunity cost.

BUT, if you're a heroine user, who wants to purchase heroine from the dark markets, OR a battered wife, who wants to "hire someone", the most efficient way to do it is through Bitcoin.

The point is about finding efficiency. The bank won't serve the dark markets, then Bitcoin will make that market more efficient.

[mariah.sadio]

Sad to know but a lot of people here only for trading & speculations, they are not ready to support important projects

[Wind_FURY]

Sad to know but a lot of people here only for trading & speculations, they are not ready to support important projects

Like what OP posted, "it's similar to a browser with only a small segment of interested users". It's not because we didn't care, it's because Openbazaar wasn't solving an inefficiency.

[3meek]

Sesen this project launched before 2016 and I think I still have it installed in my laptop. It wasn't updated since, I can't find people nearby using the project as well. They do have a competitor like the Bitbay Marketplace but even them Ithink also have a hard time getting people to build a community.

Openbazaar didn't try to launch a token as well and I guess, they could have succeeded if they just launched a token to build a community.  I don;t think its too late for it.

Token on such trading platforms is a utopia! If nobody uses the platform, and does not buy for BTC, then token would not be necessary for anyone!

[verita1]

Sad news for OpenBazaar. I sincerely hope they survive. They need strategic alliances, Marketing and of course product.
There are projects that grow very fast and others take years and show difficulties like OpenBazaar. Despite the current crisis, crypto projects are at their best, the industry has become more digital and must continue with its advances and transformations.

[Potato Chips]

The tweet mentioned that the donation was only good for until the end of this year, however.

Also, this does not change the description that Openbazaar might be something similar to a webbrowser that is only wanted by a very small segment of users.

and the article doesn't say anything about the donor which extends their services until this year (cause they didn't update it). A person would be convinced they shut down yesterday (oct 1), had they only read the outdated article. It's not an update that can be shrugged off.

Openbazaar didn't try to launch a token as well and I guess, they could have succeeded if they just launched a token to build a community.  I don;t think its too late for it.

Doubt. It will most likely be used to trade in an exchange rather than a currency to be used in their platform, therefore would only form a pump and dump community and wouldn't significantly increase their platform userbase.

[hulla]

Sad to know but a lot of people here only for trading & speculations, they are not ready to support important projects

You make a good statement because there is always a preconception when issue like this rise up samething happen when bitcoin block limit were discussed and it because we cant all have the similar view about things.
With that been said, I dont think you also noticed that 90% of all crypto enthusiast around the world dont support crypto marketplace base project and i will advise to do research about it but the reason behind it is what I dont understand and it not that they dont want to support important projects.
In the meantime, it good openbazaar get the support they needed

[theskillzdatklls]

Our blog is up to spread some Openbazaar awareness and we also talked about their funding issues. We'll spread this through some of our channels in the coming days to help them out.

https://mintdice.com/blog/openbazaar-the-decentralized-marketplace-plans-for-2020-2021

[Wind_FURY]

Our blog is up to spread some Openbazaar awareness and we also talked about their funding issues. We'll spread this through some of our channels in the coming days to help them out.

https://mintdice.com/blog/openbazaar-the-decentralized-marketplace-plans-for-2020-2021

Some merits for helping out, but if OB doesn't start solving an inefficiency, then it won't scale. To solve an inefficiency, I believe opening the platform for the heroine dark market and other drugs, perhaps?

[MysteryMiner]

The problem with OpenBazaar is censorship. Plain and simple. If I cannot buy ganja, speed or spare Glock barrels due to censorship, then it is even less usable than eBay.

[Stalker22]

The problem with OpenBazaar is censorship. Plain and simple. If I cannot buy ganja, speed or spare Glock barrels due to censorship, then it is even less usable than eBay.

LOL! Looks like someone misses Silk Road.

In any case, considering how the creator of the mentioned site ended, I don't think it would be wise for them to follow that route.

[theskillzdatklls]

The problem with OpenBazaar is censorship. Plain and simple. If I cannot buy ganja, speed or spare Glock barrels due to censorship, then it is even less usable than eBay.

LOL! Looks like someone misses Silk Road.

In any case, considering how the creator of the mentioned site ended, I don't think it would be wise for them to follow that route.

It's very different. The creator of that site ran a drug marketplace which is illegal (moral/ethical issues aside). OpenBazaar is simply an open sourced program. How it is used by it's users is completely different. What you are saying would be like criminalizing Satoshi because some people have done bad things with Bitcoin at points in the past, an open sourced program. To my knowledge, the law doesn't work that way.

[Wind_FURY]

The problem with OpenBazaar is censorship. Plain and simple. If I cannot buy ganja, speed or spare Glock barrels due to censorship, then it is even less usable than eBay.

LOL! Looks like someone misses Silk Road.

In any case, considering how the creator of the mentioned site ended, I don't think it would be wise for them to follow that route.

Then it won't solve an inefficiency in the market. Why would users use it it for regular items if they have the efficient PayPal+eBay?

The online Dark Markets/Black Markets are VERY inefficient, it's very hard for buyers and sellers to meet because they are not serviced by financial institutions and legal marketplaces. Bitcoin+OpenBazaar will fix this.

[bryant.coleman]

Openbazaar didn't try to launch a token as well and I guess, they could have succeeded if they just launched a token to build a community.  I don;t think its too late for it.

They should have done that in 2017, or during the first half of 2018. But now the ICO market is in bad shape and I don't think that they will get a good response. By 2017, they had a decent enough first-cut product and there was some hype regarding it in the market. But now the interest has waned and the number of users in their platform has gone down. No one really wants to invest in a failed product.

[d5000]

Just wow. If there was a "dislike" or "dismerit" button I would use it on 95% of the answers in this thread. (But well, what am I expecting in "Bitcoin Discussion"  )

There seem to be some misconceptions about what OpenBazaar is about. Some posters for example wanted "a token" or even "DeFi" for OpenBazaar. WTF? This is an open source project, OB1 (the company requesting for donations, which have succeeded(!) as someone posted) is only basically providing some services like support, verifying moderators, and part of the development. But what could be a OpenBazaar token be useful for? There could be agreements with a group of sellers accepting that token, perhaps, but for escrow fees and the like the potential use cases are too few.

The same goes for those wanting the store to charge fees. Sorry but that would make OpenBazaar totally pointless, as there would be clearly a centralized "operator" - and then why use a P2P network? Also the absence of fees is potentially a major point for merchants to use it.

I've looked into the last version of OB and it seems not too bad, although it's a bit slow, but it's a P2P program so that has to be expected. For sure there could be improvements. The search function is an example as it seems vulnerable to keyword stuffing, also a more precise category system for goods could be useful. But it's usable. The reason I'm not using OpenBazaar is not related to the "user interface" problem but that in my region there are no local sellers at OB, and no, I wouldn't use it for someone to ship me something from the other side of the planet (I generally prefer local, or at least regional sellers).

What I'm however a bit worried about is the OB1 business model. They mention "services" but the only source of income I could think about for now is escrower fees.

[stompix]

There seem to be some misconceptions about what OpenBazaar is about. Some posters for example wanted "a token" or even "DeFi" for OpenBazaar. WTF? This is an open source project, OB1 (the company requesting for donations, which have succeeded(!) as someone posted) is only basically providing some services like support, verifying moderators, and part of the development. But what could be a OpenBazaar token be useful for? There could be agreements with a group of sellers accepting that token, perhaps, but for escrow fees and the like the potential use cases are too few.

The same question with almost all tokens, do they have a reason to exist in the first place?
Do I need a token to buy soap, one to share a car, one to bet, one to start a smart contract with my cat, one to verify how much monofluorophosphate my toothpaste has, and one to track the monkey that has picked up my bananas?

A token for OB would have managed to do a single thing, end this project way faster as it would have ended devalued and with a ton of angry "investors" screaming around they are not getting millions ...from what? From a shop that is supposed to be cheaper and with lesser fees than a centralized marketplace? This is a way of thinking I won't understand ever, a lot of projects come with a way of doing things for a smaller fee than traditional service but at the same time, they claim they can make way more profit, from what? Not even mentioning the fact that if they would have made the token somewhat mandatory in order to use it or get some god knows what discount they would have reduced their userbase from two to one.

But it's usable. The reason I'm not using OpenBazaar is not related to the "user interface" problem but that in my region there are no local sellers at OB, and no, I wouldn't use it for someone to ship me something from the other side of the planet (I generally prefer local, or at least regional sellers).

The electric car dilemma, there are no sellers because there are no shoppers and there are no shoppers because there are no sellers. 

[d5000]

The same question with almost all tokens, do they have a reason to exist in the first place?
Do I need a token to buy soap, one to share a car, one to bet, one to start a smart contract with my cat, one to verify how much monofluorophosphate my toothpaste has, and one to track the monkey that has picked up my bananas?

I don't see tokens as negative if there's really a clear for-profit business model behind them. Then, it's simply a way of crowdfunding, or a replacement of a typical loan.

But OB isn't really for-profit ... you could imagine some profitable services attached to it, but for that justifying a token or any mass participation in financing, it would have to be much bigger, I would even say it would have to compete with eBay/Amazon for a token to make sense.

Anyway, if OB1 goes away this does probably not mean that OpenBazaar is doomed, only that probably development will be slower until another team steps in.

The electric car dilemma, there are no sellers because there are no shoppers and there are no shoppers because there are no sellers. 

Yep, true. There are ways out of that dilemma however, for example communication/"marketing" efforts could be concentrated to places with a high "Bitcoiner" population where it may be easier to reach a critical mass. Another example could be plugins for shop software which automate the creation of an OpenBazaar shop without much additional effort for the merchant. OpenBazaar would then work as a kind of aggregator for independent merchant sites, providing a common user experience.

[Carlton Banks]

People WILL USE Bitcoins if it is completely necessary.

Of course but they will do their very best to resist and find alternatives to use until the completely necessary moment arrives. That doesn't make for a very vibrant user base. And it also chucks most discretionary purchases out the window. You will simply go without.

Because of opportunity cost.

BUT, if you're a heroine user, who wants to purchase heroine from the dark markets, OR a battered wife, who wants to "hire someone", the most efficient way to do it is through Bitcoin.

The point is about finding efficiency. The bank won't serve the dark markets, then Bitcoin will make that market more efficient.

(desperately avaricious) people have been making this nonsense claim for quite some time, the user you're replying to says this at every opportunity. I once considered BTC only as a way of making fiat profits: for a maximum of 6-10 weeks, back in 2011. The difference came from educating myself about Bitcoin (I started that process here on bitcointalk.org ), and the surrounding economic issues as a whole. Not everyone does this, but they stand to lose, so this is self-correcting (in the meritocratic sense)  


Simply, the exchange rate of any medium of exchange has more dimensions than the order book of the public exchanges; velocity of use in trade feed into both the demand and (particularly) the supply side, and so are equally important. Other factors no doubt affect the exchange rate also, but if you look at it through a market trader's eyes, you only see 1 dimension.

There isn't a particular problem if you treat BTC as a savings vehicle, or as one for spending. If you are confident that BTC can be either, you will dump any fiat income you don't need, and support the BTC denominated economy. Not everyone is so confident however, and I think it's simply down to a lack of comprehension

I think the only conclusion is that if buy-low/sell-high is your investment philosophy, you will indeed end up with a huge amount of fiat currency, and some small slither of BTC when all is said and done. I hope such people will be happy with the outcome. I prefer to buy-BTC/sell-fiat at ANY price, and use the currency I think is best at every opportunity (this means using the currency that's best for me AND the person I'm trading with). This actually makes everyone better off, including (ironically) the BTC price for those using the buy-low/sell-high strategy (as they see Bitcoin only as a speculative prospect)

[stompix]

I don't see tokens as negative if there's really a clear for-profit business model behind them. Then, it's simply a way of crowdfunding, or a replacement of a typical loan.

If they indeed have a solid plan behind it, yeah I tend to not throw monkey poo at them from the first step but I dislike tokens that start as crowdfunding when the business behind it is just an idea and they have zero real-life activity other that whitepapers and dreams.
From my point of view, every token or coin that does the same thing as others with zero improvements or who's role can be taken over by one hundred other tokens is useless and even the company behind it will drop it in the end and that's why I said we don't need shitty tokens with limited roles like paying for car sharing, for example, a few months ago I stumbled upon one of my older posts with a list of those tokens, and all of them, all are dead now without one managing to do one single travel.

But OB isn't really for-profit ... you could imagine some profitable services attached to it, but for that justifying a token or any mass participation in financing, it would have to be much bigger, I would even say it would have to compete with eBay/Amazon for a token to make sense.

The moment they start doing it for profit, let's say "services attached to it", to be honest I can't really picture how those would work and so on, but at this point, it will start getting a lot less decentralized in my opinion. You will have a company running a free market but attaching other paid services to it, some that might even collide with the interest of the sellers there, I can smell amazon marketplace here, and no..just no

Yep, true. There are ways out of that dilemma however, for example communication/"marketing" efforts could be concentrated to places with a high "Bitcoiner" population where it may be easier to reach a critical mass. Another example could be plugins for shop software which automate the creation of an OpenBazaar shop without much additional effort for the merchant. OpenBazaar would then work as a kind of aggregator for independent merchant sites, providing a common user experience.

I'm skeptical about this.
The electric car dilemma was solved with subsidies, tons of money, and with tons of money you can save even openbazaar, but without unlimited funds and discounts, you need a product that is ....needed.
And now, we're back to three pages ago, who or rather how many of the people owning crypto are interested not only in purchasing stuff with their coins but do so through this., and the numbers are small, trust me, pretty damn small.

[d5000]

If they indeed have a solid plan behind it, yeah I tend to not throw monkey poo at them from the first step but I dislike tokens that start as crowdfunding when the business behind it is just an idea and they have zero real-life activity other that whitepapers and dreams.

Agree. Some work must be done before.

From my point of view, every token or coin that does the same thing as others with zero improvements or who's role can be taken over by one hundred other tokens is useless[...]

This again depends on what the token is meant to be exactly. If a token is a replacement for a loan or Kickstarter campaign, and not "the next bitcoin1!!!!" , then there can be multiple tokens of a single kind. In the case of small businesses (or single freelance artists, for example) it may however be better to try to crowdfund direct in Bitcoin or another established cryptocurrency (which will also mean less regulatory hassle).

The moment they start doing it for profit [...] it will start getting a lot less decentralized in my opinion. You will have a company running a free market but attaching other paid services to it, some that might even collide with the interest of the sellers there, I can smell amazon marketplace here, and no..just no

If it's done well it is possible - take Linux or even Bitcoin as examples where a for-profit company finances the development of a free, open source/P2P software solution without introducing hassle for the users (the Bitcoin Cash fanclub may disagree with that but I don't care ).

And as OpenBazaar is P2P and open source, if OB1 decided to introduce services colliding with the interests of the users/sellers, very likely a fork would appear and become more popular. So no, they would always have an incentive to not do that.

The problem of OB1 as for-profit is more related to the current size of the market. So my recommendation would be to continue OpenBazaar as a non-profit, but accepting donations if necessary. The problem might be that the venture capital investors would want to see some return, so it might even be needed to go into insolvency and start a new nonprofit project, e.g. a foundation. That would not affect the platform itself, only OB1 as a company, as OpenBazaar runs mostly independent from OB1.

The electric car dilemma was solved with subsidies, tons of money, and with tons of money you can save even openbazaar, but without unlimited funds and discounts, you need a product that is ....needed.

Well, electric cars imo are a bad example to compare to OpenBazaar, because it's a technology which needs huge investments in infrastructure.

OpenBazaar doesn't need as much money as that. As a platform, it is more similar to something like BitTorrent. It could work even if only a very small subset of e-commerce, or a part of e-commerce in a region (take countries with severe currency instability like Venezuela), would use it.

And now, we're back to three pages ago, who or rather how many of the people owning crypto are interested not only in purchasing stuff with their coins but do so through this., and the numbers are small, trust me, pretty damn small.

One thought about that: the hassle to cash out Bitcoins (e.g. due to stricter AML measures) is increasing, and so I guess it will become progressively more attractive to use Bitcoins to purchase goods instead.

Is there any news from them? Has something changed? Or will they be closed forever?

OpenBazaar cannot be "closed" as it's a P2P app. And OB1 (the company needing support) found a donor (some pages ago) to finance the next months.