
Apply HN: Obaas – OpenBazaar as a Service - Vertrauen
OpenBazaar is a brand new, decentralized marketplace. It cuts the middle man and puts all control in the hands of the users. But it comes at a big cost: Users need to install and run software to take part in it. Vendors even have to run the application 24&#x2F;7. And they have to set up their store and all of their products. Obaas takes away all of that pain. All functionality of OpenBazzar is available via a web interface. Obaas automatically imports your products from Shopify, Magento, Ebay or Amazon and sets up your OpenBazaar store. If you already sell products on one of these marketplaces, you will be able to sell on OpenBazaar in 5 minutes via Obaas.
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merterdir
Nice idea.

But the whole idea of OpenBazaar is that it's decentralized. I guess you'll be
the "center" in this case. If OpenBazaar becomes big enough, I think this will
work (and face competition from hundreds of clones) but if it stays the niche
it is today, I'd assume this won't work because currently the only people who
use it are people who care about the "decentralized" part. The reason for that
is everything else at OpenBazaar currently sucks. (Early stage problems)

I could be wildly wrong though, I'm not an expert in this domain.

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Vertrauen
Yes, OpenBazaar has to gain traction for this to work.

Obaas is like the exchanges for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is decentralized in the same
way as OpenBazaar. Most people use exchanges to take part in the Bitcoin
network. So if OpenBazaar takes off, the first webservice that makes it
accessible to the masses will have a nice headstart. Similar to how Mt.Gox had
a nice headstart. When it was still active, 60% of all bitcoin trades were
done via Mt.Gox.

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merterdir
Great argument, I'm convinced.

Referencing Mt.Gox is a risky move, though :)

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bestattack
I've never heard of openbazaar so you'll have to explain that part to me in
your pitch. This pitch would probably make sense if I was a storeowner who
wanted to use openbazaar but didn't know how or it was too complicated. But
your whole business depends on people having heard of this thing that I
haven't heard of. Can you explain to the storeowner why they would want to be
on openbazaar?

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ryporter
Random feedback on your name -- my brain automatically added an "m" between
the two a's in "Obaas."

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Vertrauen
It is just a working title. I am open for better ideas.

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fiatjaf
Where is the link?

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Vertrauen
As of yet, it is only an idea.

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fiatjaf
I'm sorry, I got confused about the thread. I thought this was at Show HN.

Considering it as an idea, I like it a lot. I'm not very familiar with
OpenBazaar, however. Are there many people using it?

