OpenBazaar - decentralized eBay

[leannemckim46]

I would argue that if the central escrow service that is trusted you will at least know for sure that the escrow and your counter-party are not working together to scam you. You also know exactly who you are dealing with (to some degree) and know their rules (and what information they look for when making a decision as to who to side with). With this information you will know how to "cover all your bases" when doing a transaction with someone and know that any dispute should be resolved in your favor as long as your "cover your bases"

Even if the centralized escrow can be trusted you cannot trust that your funds will be secure. Centralizing an escrow service has and will continue to be risky as it is a large target for malicious employees, outside hackers, or government thieves.

I would rather deal with a multiple party decentralized escrow where arbitration can be decided upon by multiple arbitrators.

I believe that you actually choose which arbitrator and notary will be used prior to the transaction being finalized. If it turns out that the arbitrator is an alt of the person you are dealing with then you will be out of luck. 

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[inBitweTrust]

I believe that you actually choose which arbitrator and notary will be used prior to the transaction being finalized. If it turns out that the arbitrator is an alt of the person you are dealing with then you will be out of luck.  

I don't understand your reasoning. A decentralized escrow works the same as a centralized one with regards to trust but there is more competition. In a centralized one you are forced to pick one arbitrator, in a decentralized one you either have the choice of only using one arbitrator if you trust no one else just like with centralized ones or you have the freedom to choose a new arbitrator.

The only downside to this is with extra liberty comes extra risks associated with stupid users picking arbitrators that they don't know and have no reputation.  So with a centralized escrow arrangement you may have less dumb users making mistakes but at the expense of higher fees because of less competition and added centralized risks of from attacks from governments (silk road/atlantis), from hackers who may not waste their time targeting an account that is only holding escrow for one person instead of everyone, and corrupt employees.

[Finchy]

All of this talk and ppl still forget centralized service like ebay scams ppl left and right.


The escrow can be improved:
+ at any time, escrower cant hold fund over the reputation cost
+ seller cant use one escrower for over 50% of the sales.

And that's why a decentralized service is needed, though I don't think any amount of security measure is going to be 100% watertight all the time especially when you trust someone else with your money, but that's just the way it is. Disputes can always arise which can lead to more complications too,.

[kittycatbtc]

Wouldnt be better if actual ebay accepts btc? more exposure.

[inBitweTrust]

Wouldnt be better if actual ebay accepts btc? more exposure.

Sure, it would be great if centralized and decentralized marketplaces accept bitcoin. The market will determine which is superior in time.

[Sutters Mill]

Wouldnt be better if actual ebay accepts btc? more exposure.

Sure, that would be good, but that's not the point or issue here. We want a decentralized marketplace that doesnt rape you on fees or give scammers an easy ride to easily get their money back.

[leannemckim46]

I believe that you actually choose which arbitrator and notary will be used prior to the transaction being finalized. If it turns out that the arbitrator is an alt of the person you are dealing with then you will be out of luck.  

I don't understand your reasoning. A decentralized escrow works the same as a centralized one with regards to trust but there is more competition. In a centralized one you are forced to pick one arbitrator, in a decentralized one you either have the choice of only using one arbitrator if you trust no one else just like with centralized ones or you have the freedom to choose a new arbitrator.

The only downside to this is with extra liberty comes extra risks associated with stupid users picking arbitrators that they don't know and have no reputation.  So with a centralized escrow arrangement you may have less dumb users making mistakes but at the expense of higher fees because of less competition and added centralized risks of from attacks from governments (silk road/atlantis), from hackers who may not waste their time targeting an account that is only holding escrow for one person instead of everyone, and corrupt employees.

How do they get reputation in the first place? It is essentially purchased. If you can purchase enough reputation cheaply enough to be able to scam for more then the cost of the reputation.

[inBitweTrust]

How do they get reputation in the first place? It is essentially purchased. If you can purchase enough reputation cheaply enough to be able to scam for more then the cost of the reputation.

Placing a bond or proof of burn is only one layer of reputation. Reputation is gained with a trusted name through ones history and past trades. If we are speaking about a marketplace with mainly legal items than the arbitrators usually use their real identities and thus can't and wont sell their accounts. If we are talking about illegal items being sold I would rather take my chances with decentralized escrow than trusting a centralized escrow system as the histories of "hackers" stealing all funds is really bad for dark markets.

[leannemckim46]

How do they get reputation in the first place? It is essentially purchased. If you can purchase enough reputation cheaply enough to be able to scam for more then the cost of the reputation.

Placing a bond or proof of burn is only one layer of reputation. Reputation is gained with a trusted name through ones history and past trades. If we are speaking about a marketplace with mainly legal items than the arbitrators usually use their real identities and thus can't and wont sell their accounts. If we are talking about illegal items being sold I would rather take my chances with decentralized escrow than trusting a centralized escrow system as the histories of "hackers" stealing all funds is really bad for dark markets.

Bonds or accounts with proof of burn can easily be bought. If the marketplace is brand new then there will be no history that anyone has.

An arbitrator that uses his real identity can still sell his account, but he would likely need to be more desperate to do so because of the added risk to him. 

[dankkk]

I believe that you actually choose which arbitrator and notary will be used prior to the transaction being finalized. If it turns out that the arbitrator is an alt of the person you are dealing with then you will be out of luck.  

I don't understand your reasoning. A decentralized escrow works the same as a centralized one with regards to trust but there is more competition. In a centralized one you are forced to pick one arbitrator, in a decentralized one you either have the choice of only using one arbitrator if you trust no one else just like with centralized ones or you have the freedom to choose a new arbitrator.

The only downside to this is with extra liberty comes extra risks associated with stupid users picking arbitrators that they don't know and have no reputation.  So with a centralized escrow arrangement you may have less dumb users making mistakes but at the expense of higher fees because of less competition and added centralized risks of from attacks from governments (silk road/atlantis), from hackers who may not waste their time targeting an account that is only holding escrow for one person instead of everyone, and corrupt employees.

When you have competition then the escrow will generally want to make the person who drives more business to them happy. If one side of a transaction tends to drive a lot of business towards the escorow then the escrow will have a reason to side with them regardless of the facts

[oceans]

This is looking good and if done right could have the potential to be big would definitely give eBay a run for it's money that is for sure so I am really looking forward to seeing this.

[Pacowomo]

So the question here is... can one safely order some weed on there or what

[wasserman99]

I believe that you actually choose which arbitrator and notary will be used prior to the transaction being finalized. If it turns out that the arbitrator is an alt of the person you are dealing with then you will be out of luck. 

I don't understand your reasoning. A decentralized escrow works the same as a centralized one with regards to trust but there is more competition. In a centralized one you are forced to pick one arbitrator, in a decentralized one you either have the choice of only using one arbitrator if you trust no one else just like with centralized ones or you have the freedom to choose a new arbitrator.

The only downside to this is with extra liberty comes extra risks associated with stupid users picking arbitrators that they don't know and have no reputation.  So with a centralized escrow arrangement you may have less dumb users making mistakes but at the expense of higher fees because of less competition and added centralized risks of from attacks from governments (silk road/atlantis), from hackers who may not waste their time targeting an account that is only holding escrow for one person instead of everyone, and corrupt employees.

When you have competition then the escrow will generally want to make the person who drives more business to them happy. If one side of a transaction tends to drive a lot of business towards the escorow then the escrow will have a reason to side with them regardless of the facts

This is a good point. I think that escrow services will likely work on tips and when one party directs a lot of business to a certain escrow service and allows tips to be directed towards the escrow then the escrow service will likely side with that person (who would likely be the seller). This would make using escrow a moot point in many/most situations.

[rampage101]

Hey, there is an Exclusive interview here about the Open Bazaar:


http://bitcoinpricelive.com/openbazaar-decentralized-marketplace/

OpenBazaar is a new and intresting project about to get released to the Bitcoin public. As you can see in the video a non-restricted free to use marketplace environment is being worked on right now. We asked the Operations Lead for OpenBazaar Sam Patterson, a few questions about what can users expect from the project and what might lie in store for the future.

Which kind of new options will merchants and customers receive from the OpenBazaar compared to ebay or Amazon?

Using OpenBazaar, merchants will not need to pay the sellers fees and PayPal fees, and they don’t have to follow the rules of a particular marketplace for what items they can list. Both the merchants and the customers will also have the ability to choose their own arbitration. Right now, if you use an ecommerce platform and run into a problem, you may not get very personalized or quality dispute resolution. OpenBazaar will have a market for arbitration, so people will be able to choose who the third party is based on reputation and ratings.

What kind of products you imagine would be the first to hit on the virtual shelves of the OpenBazaar?

We think the first use case will be something like BitMit was, where the bitcoin community has a platform to buy and sell goods among themselves. Over time, once the platform has grown and proven itself, we expect that merchants using traditional ecommerce platforms will begin listing their products on OpenBazaar as well, due to the lack of seller fees and better arbitration.
Ultimately, we’re creating an open source platform that anyone can use, and we don’t know beforehand how people are going to use it to make their lives and their communities better. It’s exciting to consider how peer to peer commerce online could change the world.

Continued...

[BitCoinNutJob]

At this rate they wont be taking ebay customers but other auction site customers.  Lots of complaints about ebay technical problems for weeks not being sorted out.  Right now i cant even access ebay.

[iamahappyminer]

How are you guys going to deal with scammers on both sides? Cryptothrift has escrow, so the scammers just convince people to go outside it.

[DubFX]

So the question here is... can one safely order some weed on there or what

This isn't dark marketplace with illegal items, it's only peer to peer market wich means there are no fees.
Ordering drugs is never safe!

[BitCoinNutJob]

How are you guys going to deal with scammers on both sides? Cryptothrift has escrow, so the scammers just convince people to go outside it.

If a buyer does the deal outside of the platform they wont have the protection from the arbiter is how i think it will work.  So if you are stupid enough to forgo this protection on a deal you should except a higher risk of being scammed. 

Ebay is like a nanny state which protects buyers but not sellers.

[Dawnbreaker]

Many typos.
"Auction businessed must have KYC"
"It’s predecessors"
"Everything old becomes new, long ago bazaars"
"Its time to take control back"
"and the fund’s are at their mercy"

[hgerson]

How are you guys going to deal with scammers on both sides? Cryptothrift has escrow, so the scammers just convince people to go outside it.

Escrow is not scam-proof.

Scammers have a lot of imagination.