Decentralized Travel Booking Platform

[Amaze World]

Just listened to Vitalik on Naval Podcast. It was a great talk. It raises some questions in mind about the true decentralization that Etherium is trying to achieve, and how we can implement that vision in the travel sector.

We are designing a decentralized travel booking platform for the tourism sector. There are so many limitations, still curious to know the view of the community, what should be the technical aspects that we need to include that make the travel booking truly decentralized?

Please provide your feedback, that will help us to make the perfect decentralized platform for the tourism sector.  

Thank you.

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[dkbit98]

We are designing a decentralized travel booking platform for the tourism sector. There are so many limitations, still curious to know the view of the community, what should be the technical aspects that we need to include that make the travel booking truly decentralized?

This should not be based on Ethereum, that is not really trying to achieve any true decentralization at all, and we know that most of their nodes are hosted on cloud servers.
If you want to build something like this you should use real decentralized network like Bitcoin, or build something on top of bitcoin using some second layer solution or lightning network.

[BlackHatCoiner]

It raises some questions in mind about the true decentralization that Etherium is trying to achieve

Sure. That's why they're switching to Proof of Stake. So they can make it more decentralized. With a 70% of the coins in circulation being pre-mined. Sure, decentralization and holy God.

We are designing a decentralized travel booking platform for the tourism sector.

So, how's that related to a blockchain? Create a software where the users can interact from the client in a P2P way if Booking.com is the thing you want to avoid. Money units can be any cryptocurrency you want.

[n0nce]

We are designing a decentralized travel booking platform for the tourism sector.

So, how's that related to a blockchain? Create a software where the users can interact from the client in a P2P way if Booking.com is the thing you want to avoid. Money units can be any cryptocurrency you want.

In my opinion, P2P booking is not a bad idea. For instance, it could work a bit like Bisq or Torrents, where you 'host' your offer yourself on your own machine and other peers can see it whenever your machine is online. There are no centralized servers that can be shut down and customers can interface with you directly, so there's no cut taken away by the platform. It also means they don't have to trust some service provider with handling the payment and their sensitive data, since they pay you directly and you don't leave pictures and addresses of your properties on someone's servers forever either (better privacy & security).

Bitcoin could definitely be incorporated as the default payment method of course. But the adverts don't have to be stored on a blockchain; that is just very costly and makes little sense.

[BlackHatCoiner]

[...]

It can work, but I don't see a major benefit. Also, why should you limit the niche of the software? Why don't you create a p2p ebay, instead, which can have any kind of service. Merchants run the servers and customers the clients.

I just wonder how can you have a trust score, such as in TrustPilot, in a decentralized manner. (That can't be faked)

[n0nce]

[...]

It can work, but I don't see a major benefit. Also, why should you limit the niche of the software? Why don't you create a p2p ebay, instead, which can have any kind of service. Merchants run the servers and customers the clients.

I just wonder how can you have a trust score, such as in TrustPilot, in a decentralized manner. (That can't be faked)

Can't agree more on both aspects. On one hand, it's great to decentralize stuff, on the other hand you lose the trusted third party that e.g. eBay represents and which can refund you when you get scammed and provide other such means of 'protection'. The problem that comes with this is privacy and costs (over 10% in fees for the seller - yikes).

[pooya87]

The first question you should always be asking is not "how" but "why". In other words you should first investigate why you want to make booking decentralized, what is the benefits and what problems are you going to solve? If you can't find good answers to these questions then it is not a good idea to go the decentralized route.

In my opinion, P2P booking is not a bad idea. For instance, it could work a bit like Bisq or Torrents, where you 'host' your offer yourself on your own machine and other peers can see it whenever your machine is online. There are no centralized servers that can be shut down and customers can interface with you directly, so there's no cut taken away by the platform.

That is not exactly P2P though, if there is a single server that is run on your machine there still is a centralized server, it is just not on a third party computer. In torrent network for example the file doesn't exist on a single computer that is why it is pure P2P. But in your idea (same as OpenBazar) if you shut down your computer, the server goes away too.

the true decentralization that Etherium is trying to achieve

You mean the true centralization that ethereum is trying to achieve.

[n0nce]

In my opinion, P2P booking is not a bad idea. For instance, it could work a bit like Bisq or Torrents, where you 'host' your offer yourself on your own machine and other peers can see it whenever your machine is online. There are no centralized servers that can be shut down and customers can interface with you directly, so there's no cut taken away by the platform.

That is not exactly P2P though, if there is a single server that is run on your machine there still is a centralized server, it is just not on a third party computer. In torrent network for example the file doesn't exist on a single computer that is why it is pure P2P. But in your idea (same as OpenBazar) if you shut down your computer, the server goes away too.

Maybe it's not decentralized in the sense of replicating the information, but since there is no single server, instead one per hotel / landlord, it's not centralized in the traditional sense either. And I would argue it's definitely P2P, like the Bisq network, where everyone keeps their own offer online by keeping their computer online.

[dkbit98]

In my opinion, P2P booking is not a bad idea. For instance, it could work a bit like Bisq or Torrents, where you 'host' your offer yourself on your own machine and other peers can see it whenever your machine is online.

That sounds interesting, maybe easiest way for them would be to get listed on Bisq exchange, or fork it and make totally new P2P booking software, but I think it would be a problem to get everyone to download, install and use that software.
For something like this to work this has to be decentralized, and it can't be connected with Binance/CZ or similar centralized authority that can exclude you from traveling you booked just because someone told him to do it to comply with the new rules.
I think that all shitcoin tokens can be frozen so it would be foolish to use that in this platform, unless only thing you want is a money grab

[Amaze World]

We are designing a decentralized travel booking platform for the tourism sector. There are so many limitations, still curious to know the view of the community, what should be the technical aspects that we need to include that make the travel booking truly decentralized?

This should not be based on Ethereum, that is not really trying to achieve any true decentralization at all, and we know that most of their nodes are hosted on cloud servers.
If you want to build something like this you should use real decentralized network like Bitcoin, or build something on top of bitcoin using some second layer solution or lightning network.

Right