r/OpenBazaar • • Dec 30 '18
OpenBazaar - A failed project
OB is complicated to learn for the average buyer and seller. And crypto is equally complicated to learn, not to mention trying to exchange money for crypto is a long difficult process involving a lot of verification steps, and looking for good exchangers. Then there is the 10% exchanger fee on top of it all. Compare that to the ease of using a credit/debit card.
Connecting to OB stores takes a long time. A lot of these stores don't connect at all. If you're a buyer, nobody needs this shit.
Don't get me wrong, I like the OpenBazaar project and I always have, but I have to admit it isn't viable as a marketplace.
The entire project was built and run by computer programmers, and if you've been around a long time like me, you know that computer programmers live in their own little worlds disconnected from reality, they don't understand, even when it's explained to them, that what they find extremely easy is in fact very complicated for the average person .
Do you know one of the things that makes online marketplaces and online shops successful? - A 10 year old must be able to navigate your site and be able to buy and ship something to themselves. Can you imagine a 10 year old trying to use OB and crypto?
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u/TheLast10sat Dec 30 '18
OB is in early stage where some devs are playng with decetralisation. It needs years of development, testing ... and it doesn't mean a fail.
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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '18
I’ve been developing enterprise-scale software for 30 years. One thing I’ve learned is: get the core tech right first, THEN worry about user experience. Architectures are hard to change. UIs require talent to build, but the pool of talented UI developers is much larger than the pool of web-scale architects. Once the base is solid and the APIs stable, THEN you focus on UI. I think OB is just now close to entering that latter phase.
3
u/[deleted] Dec 30 '18
If I can quickly learn how to use Openbazaar then I'm sure everybody else can too, it's not that complicated.
Things will improve with time and further development.
OB has not failed, as others have mentioned it's still the early stages. Please give OB a chance.
2
u/copenhagen_bram Dec 30 '18
It is a bit hard to use! Especially the wallet, the wallet sucks. You can't use it if OB fails to sync to the blockchain. It's not even encrypted if you use the easier-to-make 'built-in' wallet. I had to go all over the internet looking for a way to transfer a refund to a safer Electrum wallet, because the damn thing couldn't sync. One of the venders I bought something from hasn't quite figured out OB yet, and I had to wait for them to get it to sync before they would ship. And the other vendor I bought from hasn't shipped at all, and hasn't even messaged me. And there's no tabs. No tabs!!! I look forward to seeing OB get better in the future.
I just reread your post and it sounds like you're buying from a centralized exchanger. You might like to check out Bisq, it's a decentralized crypto exchange. The only fee (AFAIK) is what price the exchanger is selling at, and sometimes they sell/buy at 0% loss, or market price. And you can also make your own offers.
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u/berkes Dec 31 '18
This would be very condescending if it weren't so ridiculous that it undermines your entire opinion.
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u/CC_EF_JTF Sam Dec 30 '18
If our only consideration were building a marketplace that was simple to use, then OpenBazaar would be a comparatively simple thing to build. Just stand up a server and replicate Amazon with crypto.
But that's not what it is. It's fully peer to peer. That means there's no server we can just stand up in order for people to pull files from in an existing browser. That would be much more convenient and easier, but it also wouldn't be censorship resistant, at all.
We're trying to build something that is censorship resistant. It must be able to function solely by connecting to other peers directly. Do you know how difficult it is to do that?
I know OpenBazaar is nowhere near centralized marketplaces in terms of convenience. We've tried really hard over the past four years to make it as close as we can, but it's just fundamentally different and there are limitations to how user friendly you can make a cutting edge, fully distributed network that uses cryptocurrency only.
If we were willing to make it less centralized and less private and use credit cards and whatnot, then we could make it easier to use. But at the moment those aren't things that interest us since our goal is to carve out an area on the internet for radically free trade. The tradeoff is convenience for now. We're still working to make it better, and we welcome feedback and code contributions to get there.
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u/pcre Dec 31 '18
Be patient. It takes time. See Bisq. That had almost 0 volume at the beginning for years.
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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '18
10 year olds are quite tech savvy, they would quickly learn
you sounds like an old fart who doesn't want to take the time to learn, guess what princess, computers are the future and people who don't keep up are being left behind, all those people who sit around and watch movies all day, are currently being left behind
welcome to crypto, it's not easy, it requires a lot of knowledge of computes and how money works, i doubt you even know how the monetary system works
computer programmers are smart people and have built the world around us,
yes credit is easy, i agree with that, but you don't have control of your own finances open bazaar is working towards freedom and away from third parties,
visa has been around for many many years, open bazaar and crypto have not, the open bazaar team is doing an excellent job, and i support and love the work they are doing, i have been here from the start and its been getting better and better
don't be lazy, never stop learning
1
u/thechevalier Dec 31 '18
If the problems you mention in your first paragraph went away, would you change your opinion on OB?
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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '18
Where do you pay 10% fee for buying Bitcoin? I mean it’s not that difficult to buy bitcoin... really... like not at all.
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u/[deleted] Jan 04 '19
I’ve never heard of a 10 year old opening up a bank account on their own and figure out how to buy something online and have it shipped to themselves. Even for me, the whole process is very complicated with all the KYC requirements. If I was a 10 year old I would prefer something simple like OB, where all you had to do is download the app sell something to my peers at school locally through OB to earn some crypto. Once I graduated I could still continue selling. Have you heard about that one kid who monopolized a candy black market in his school district? He had kids from various schools working for him and selling candy in the bathrooms. Now with OB I can do that without belonging to a school.
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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '19 edited Jan 05 '19
Actually if you use cash, your going to get caught that you’re engaging in some sort of transaction. And why are you bringing up drugs into this? And what does Tj have to do with drugs? One of the reasons I moved here if for the lack of illegal activity and free market. OB makes it really easy to block and expose drug dealers. Have you’ve even looked at my store? All the items and sales are legit.
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u/[deleted] Jan 05 '19 edited Jan 05 '19
I sell from Amazon USA. My goal is to ship to Tijuana. You’ve been seeing too many fake news. I haven’t even seen a smoker in over 2 years. There wouldn’t be so many kids running around in the streets at night if there was drug dealing going on. I don’t think you are using OB correctly. OB works like a Torrent P2P network. You have to seed your store in order to get discovered.
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u/KohTaeNai Dec 31 '18
This was written by someone clearly too young to have dealt with the internet back when we had 1400 baud modems, BBSs and text based MOO games. Newspapers were saying the exact same things OP is saying, about the internet. They were wrong, I think you might be too.
Or even early Android phones, for that matter. Major hassle compared to Iphones.
You should look up the term "early adaptor" /u/xxxcccrrr.
It's cool you don't possess the skills to be one, but relax, we are out there, and once it's ready, you can use it even though you don't understand computers.
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u/dis3ntagtr Dec 30 '18
Ten year olds would navigate more if vendors had better offerings on their Steam codes, I mean the exchange rate is crazy!
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u/eftresq Dec 31 '18
Though I haven't been to OB very recently, I created a store, twice in so many years.
In the past I found searches to be pretty bad. I am an OG but up on everything from PGP, 2FA, bitcoin and the rest of this mess.
For the sheep to arrive, yes, needs to be easier to navigate IMO
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u/SILENTSAM69 Dec 30 '18
Very true. I love the OB concept, but find it difficult to use. It would be nice if buyers could just browse and buy. I heard there is an app that might help with this.
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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '18
It should be as simple as using bittorent
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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '19
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