It's Time For A Decentralized Marketplace

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This time last year we were fighting against centralization on Steem, on a centralized platform called Twitter. This year we're fighting against censorship on a centralized platform called Twitter. @theycallmedan had his account suspended and all his work has gone down the drain. Now I see @hiveonboard account also suspended and the team's work has gone down the drain as well. Followers, relationships built, all gone. If this wasn't enough, we saw the most powerful man in politics kicked out of a dozen of social media platforms earlier this week, his businesses also licked out of e-commerce platforms. Deutsche Bank said they are not interested in doing business with Donald Trump anymore. The German bank has helped in funding Trump's golf courses and hotels.

The New Normal

Last year the pandemic caused lockdown showed us how much we depend on social media platforms. Many spent weeks in isolation and/or were forced to work online. For them the only way of socializing was through these centralized platforms.

Small businesses were hit hard as well, not just individuals. With markets and fairs closed, events cancelled, one after another, the only way for these small businesses/crafters to sell their products was through these centralized online platforms. You may say at least it's something and I agree with you, but let's see at what costs they were able to do that.

Paying The Price

Etsy is a well known marketplace, an American e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies. I'm an Etsy seller myself and know first hand how much it costs you to sell your products.

There's a listing fee of $0.20 per item you have to pay for your listing to be active for 4 months. There's a renewal option that costs you another $0.20 per item. $0.20 per item seems nothing, but when you list 100 items it means $20. Then there's a 5% transaction fee for every item, plus a 5% on shipping fees.

Advertising on different social media platforms is free (apparently) but it costs you a great deal of time, which you may not have if you're the crafter and have to work in order to have something to sell. There's an advertising option on Etsy, but it has its price, not many can afford it.

The combination of e-commerce platform use and social media advertising helped sellers to survive but even so, how many desperate cries for help I saw last year, people asking for retweets, or even donations to be able to pay rent or live another day in the same uncertainty.

Centralized Danger

Etsy, like so many other e-commerce platforms is centralized, thus there's a high risk of your account being suspended definitely if they think you did something wrong and you can't do anything about it. Imagine the risk sellers are exposed to when their living is based on performance on these platforms. One click and you're gone.

jezaelmelgozaHYQvV8wWX18unsplash.jpg
Photo by Jezael Melgoza on Unsplash

It's Time For A Decentralized Marketplace

These small businesses depend on centralized platforms, their owners' living depends on them. It's a constant struggle to make ends meet and one can never know what happens next.

Hive has the possibility to create a decentralized marketplace, cut out the middleman and offer home to small (and big) businesses, connecting buyers with sellers worldwide.

Advantages Of A Decentralized Marketplace

  • sellers and buyers can set the terms, no middleman needed,
  • smaller fees,
  • executing trades and releasing funds are controlled by a smart contract or program instead of a person,
  • transparency,
  • traceability,
  • immutability.

So Far On Hive Blockchain

@jongolson is working on a project called HivePay.io, to help merchants and website owners open their businesses up to the Hive and Hive-Engine eco-system. This is good news and it makes a bridge between businesses and Hive, connecting them.

This is a start, definitely a tool we need with reasonable fees but we need a marketplace as well. Setting up a blog on Hive for your products is not the best solution I'd say.

2021 is the year of changes and development on our platform. Good things have been already announced and it's only been 12 days since the beginning of the year, so I'm hoping for more good news this year.

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12 comments
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Yeah I'm watching @jongolson and CTP closely since they seem to have alot planned for this year and may have the best entrepreneurs we have on Hive. With something like Hivepay up and running this might spark alot of new projects popping up!

2021 has shown us so far that we need to develope decentralized alternatives ...

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Appreciate the shout out :)

We're staying busy for sure....Lots planned!

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I agree with you, they are doing a great job and let's hope more is coming.

!ENGAGE 20

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Appreciate the shout out :)

Yeah Hive Pay is working flawlessly...Just needs adoption. Which seems to be the case everywhere LOL

We're ready to rock whenever HivePay is needed!

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Adoption will come for sure. Thanks guys for the good work!

!ENGAGE 20

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totally agree with you and now i think it's the time for action of both doing marketing for Hive/leo (see twitter's censorship) as well as to move forward with your idea which is pretty awesome by the way.

i think we used to have/have a market place but it is dead something like that

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i think we used to have/have a market place but it is dead something like that

where as I don't recall having a marketplace. There was one on steem for digital content but with the fork .... I don't think there's any.

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Yes! I agree entirely!

We are way overdue for a decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace that would allow Hive's numerous talented creatives and entrepreneurs to trade with each other in something that might be a cross between an eBay and an Amazon style marketplace, except everything could be conducted without the need for fiat money.

As a small non-profit charity, our "use case" would be to auction off donations for Hive/crypto.

All the financial and technical geniuses around here are always talking about needing use cases that would create a demand for the Hive token and thus increase price. A good starting point might be that you need to have Hive to BUY stuff you really want! If you didn't need to go SELL your Hive to get dollars to buy stuff on Amazon, it might reduce all that selling pressure a bit...

Bright Blessings!

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