Openbazaar is a peer to peer application that gives you the freedom to do commerce over the internet. There are no fees and no restrictions.
Image pixapay.com
OB2
I have been eagerly awaiting OB2 which is the next release of the current software incorporating a major infrastructure overhall. It will use IPFS so that it is truly tool that anybody can use on their home computer. At the moment you need a server so that your store is always online. In my experience you probably need a cloud server provider in order to have an acceptable online presence.
What does OB do?
The Openbazaar application creates the market infrastructure so that you can transact online. Escrow is provided by other users and everything is handled in the app.
This app has been under development for a long time and this morning I looked at a few interesting stats
Online Stores
The website duosearch.ch provides a search engine for online stores and I had been tracking last year the stores but for the last 9 months or so my attention has been elsewhere. I have been waiting for the release of OB2. When I checked today on Duosearch I was surprised that there are less not more stores than the last time I looked. Here is the data I had been tracking. The App divides products into 3 categories; physical goods, digital goods and service goods.
- Total is the total of all three
| Date | Physical | Digital | Service | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-06-13 | 4435 | 372 | 143 | 4950 |
| 2016-06-21 | 5485 | 366 | 170 | 6021 |
| 2016-06-30 | 5915 | 361 | 151 | 6427 |
| 2016-07-12 | 6746 | 381 | 167 | 7294 |
| 2016-07-31 | 7510 | 313 | 119 | 7942 |
| 2016-09-17 | 6775 | 592 | 127 | 7494 |
| 2016-10-13 | 8070 | 578 | 133 | 8781 |
| 2016-10-29 | 6284 | 578 | 144 | 7006 |
| 2017-07-22 | 3580 | 368 | 92 | 4040 |
There was strong growth in 2016 but there has been a big drop off in stores in 2017. The data for this table was taken from the www.duosearch.ch website.
Apps
Back in October of last year there was also an android app which you could use to make purchases called bazaarhound. The app is no longer available for android and the website has the following text
Source: http://www.bazaarhound.com/
These are not encouraging stats
Websites
At the moment in order to make a purchase you need to download the software to your computer but you can browse on www.duosearch.ch or www.bazaarbay.org. There doesn't seem to be any third party website where you can make purchases. I tried to sign up to Mubiz but I got no response.
Are people awaiting the release of OB2?
Will this app and software take off with the release of OB2? The upcoming release looks very promising. What do you think?
Edit: The number of items online at duosearch was checked again and updated to 3,580 Physical items from 2,031.
Thank you for reading this. I write on Steemit about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Travel and lots of random topics.
Eagerly waiting 2.0. Funny you mention mobile, this was posted two days ago on one of the devs YouTube channel
The IPFS inclusion is going to be the biggest thing about 2.0 I think. I love OpenBazaar, nothing tops it in what it does, free app, no ICO or specific coin needed thanks to @Shapeshiftio inclusion https://steemit.com/tutorial/@cryplectibles/tutorial-with-images-how-to-buy-with-steem-on-openbazaar I mean before that it was Bitcoin only which I don't hate, but for it to be as open as it wanted to be I think alt coin support was needed, so glad that came.
That app looks great. I am in the process of setting up a store to sell Steemit Tshirts. I want to get some more merchandise and work out a step by step guide for how people can purchase before doing a post about it.
I might not get around to launching the store till OB2 gets released. We will see.
Found your store! http://bazaarbay.org/@eroche Looks like great products so far. It's so easy for people to be able to buy but having more tutorials definitely won't hurt at all for those who are new to spending their crypto at all, and within the Steemit community, that is a lot.
So how do they ensure the legality of this? The problem of decentralized platforms like this often is similar to that of torrent sites. If you download the software and use the blockchain, you often automatically become a part of the network - and maybe even complicit in criminal activities. How does openbazaar ensure that I won't go to prison for checking out the software?
I don't think they provide any guarantees of that. At the moment the software is not based on IPFS, that may become more of an issue for the servers where the IPFS data is stored rather than for clients browsing the network. It is an interesting project, let me know what you think.
Some replies came to this from reddit
I also think that it's a very interesting project. There are a few other projects with a similar value proposition like particl.io which had their genesis block creation a few days ago and who are also looking to create a decentralized marketplace with similar features. If they can somehow figure out the legalities of this (best case scenario through anonymization and encryption), this could become very big. Only time will tell which of the marketplaces will survive.
The hard part for these marketplaces will be building and establishing trust online. Complete anonymity will be counter-productive for legitimate businesses.
When we think of the internet there is both the good and the bad coexisting. At first people would have spelled doom for the internet because of all the evil it could be used for. I don't see why a similar paradigm cannot exist for these decentralised online marketplaces.
particl.io looks interesting. I will check it out some more.
I think OB has come up with some decent solutions for helping trust https://steemit.com/tutorial/@cryplectibles/tutorial-with-images-how-to-buy-with-steem-on-openbazaar especially with upcoming TOR support for those who are super anonymous will still be able to hold their accounts and have transaction activity tracked tied to a user at least.
The advantage of a democracy is the slowness at which change happens.
The advantage of technology is that change can be very quick.
The problem when new technology and democracy meet is that laws take years to establish while technological change can happen within minutes sometimes.
That's why there still are a lot of problems with the Internet more than 20 years after its mainstream use.
I guess it will take another 20 years for this technology to be somewhat regulated. Right now, it's Wild Wild West out here.
Some answers for you
I would agree with those comments on reddit. I would add that different jurisdictions may have different laws but I would be more concerned at this stage, not about the legal implications but about the image and reputation issues.
Let me explain, at the moment if I promote a store on ob it appears next to listings for things I don't want my brand to be associated with. I am not suggesting to restrict what is for sale but it is a concern for me. Not sure what the answer to that is. Its probably an concern that will disappear when there is more volume on ob.
Great post , i will test this app , thank you so much for sharing
United we stand, divided we fall.
Great post..
Upvoted
I think once anonymity works in 2.0 there will be an explosion in usage.
First, we'll see "dark" markets begin to adopt OB, and as they do they will have money to spend. They will already be using OB, so why not shop there also?
This will bring demand for non-illicit products. Even drug dealers need toothpaste.
It's such an appealing product the explosion may even come from regular users who suddenly find they can open up an online shop in less than ten minutes.
I am awaiting OB2, I had store in 1 to test it out and liked it. Just awaiting 2 before opening another store.
Id say a lot of people have a similar story. Testing out in ob1 and will open up again when ob2 launches.
I created an OB store back in February to sell T-Shirts and other apparel. I have a little over 100 products listed. I haven't used OB since.
It's not of good use for me and my products yet because I can set the prices only in BTC and seeing how much the BTC price fluctuates, I would have to readjust my products prices every day, maybe even multiple times a day. And I can't do that with over 100 products.
Also, I tried to set up a personalized username, but that didn't work. I've contacted both OB support and onename support. Both parties said I should talk with the other party.
Also, IPFS integration with OB is needed if they want to attract more users.
I'm looking forward to the OB2 though.
PS: One small remark about your post. There is one restriction. You are not allowed to sell anything illegal on OB (unlike the darkweb).