Hi folks! I’m here with another idea. Let’s make an amazon alternative. I know! I know! That was asked for a couple times already but lets discuss some details.
Amazon is basically glorified dropshipping by now. What if we just made federated (not sure if over activitypub would work) ads and sales, powered by fediseer (the “trust” network of the fediverse).
Example 1: So you buy at toms groceries, you trust them. they have experience with tina’s hardware store and they trust them. so you can buy both toms and tinas wares on both sites.
Example 2: So for example, I run a small business that sells computers. You run a small business that sells mice and keyboards. I have worked with you before so I mark you as trusted in my local website, which federates with yours, showing your products in my shop. If a customer buys my computer and buys your keyboard on top, my site sends you a buy order with customer address and payment. I get a small fee for my electricity of say 1%.
Can someone try and poke holes in this idea? It feels like this could work!
Have a nice weekend.
I believe its valid to point these things out from a technical standpoint. What is the point you’re trying to make though?
This premise is not correct. As I’ve described, Amazon’s business is providing services to other businesses, many services, which make their platform attractive for sellers due to ease-of-use. Therefore…
This objective is not really possible. An alternative that does not provide all of those services is not actually an alternative.
Thanks for clarifying. As stated, I disagree on this premise. We were talking about amazon.com. more specific the platform that shows you items you can buy from a variety of sellers which you dont have to vet yourself, with no ui change, with unufied payment, unified purchase, unified shipment overview. The other services i’m fine to discuss at some point but thats not the idea here.
There is no real point. You did not seem to get what the other person said and so I added it to make it a bit more clear on why its not an amazon replacement because amazon does so much more. Its just sorta how conversations involving a few people work. Im not just talking about the last thing you said but about the whole read down the line.
Got it. Thanks for chiming in. I never meant to clone the company. I’m talking about amazon.com maybe I didnt make that clear enough, sorry.
im sorry so you did not meant to clone amazon.com in a federated way but your talking about amazon.com? im a bit confused myself at this point.
Amazon.com is a marketplace, separate from aws and all their other endeavors. It is not important for this idea that they have a billion different things working.
I mean sure but again that is akin to ebay. ebay is amazone without the warehouses, shipping, and logistics intelligence and organization. so anyone that wants to avoid amazon could use ebay right now but they don’t because they want the benefits of the fast shipping and returns and such. again I think having some sort of federated marketplace would be great but it would in no way be like ordering from amazon.
You are overlooking the part where you dont haggle with the seller on amazon, you dont have to look if the item is actually used and just sold as new. You dont have to gauge if its a scam, which is hugely common on ebay. Its more like a platform for experienced buyers with concrete ideas. Not that I would not see a possible ebay alternative here as well but my main focus is on providing unified shopping in every site this platform would ne run on with a closed trust network which could then be expanded.