cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/40697282
This is mostly just word-vomit, but I had a random idea while doing a tonne of Xmas shopping and figured you guys might appreciate possibly chewing on it.
What if there potentially was a Fediverse-style alternative / competitor to Amazon Prime, etc. but instead of being one giant marketplace (a la Flohmarkt, etc.), it was made up of independent websites that federate together?
Think something architecturally similar to Lemmy, Mastodon, Peertube, Pixelfed, Loops by Pixelfed, etc, but:
No “instances” in the traditional sense (like Lemmy servers, Mastodon, instances, etc.)
Instead, each shop is its own fully independent website
(e.g.
Gotyka,
Dolls Kill,
Dracula Clothing,
VampireFreaks,
Killstar,
Hot Topic,
Barnes and Noble,
Home Depot,
Everlane,
Kotn,
Pact,
American Giant,
Taylor Stitch,
Outerknown,
plus other shops for books, electronics, home goods, etc.)
The federated layer wouldn’t replace their storefronts. It would just:
Aggregate listings / catalogs
Allow discovery, search, wishlists, maybe reviews
Potentially handle things like recommendations without centralizing power
Function kind of like a decentralized “market index” rather than a single store
In other words: a protocol + shared infrastructure, not a mega-store.
Some half-baked thoughts:
Users might sign in via each individual shop (or perhaps via a shared fediverse identity like ActivityPub / OAuth / something new)
Each store keeps control of branding, stock, payments, policies
The “platform” just connects them into one large, searchable, decentralized marketplace
No single Amazon-style choke point that can enshittify everything
I love this idea in theory, but realistically:
I don’t have the skills, knowledge, or time to build anything like this
I also don’t know if this already exists in some form (OpenBazaar vibes? Solid? Something ActivityPub-adjacent?)
This is more of a conceptual “what if” than a proposal
But the idea stuck with me because:
I hate how centralized Amazon is
I like how the Fediverse decentralizes control
And holiday shopping really highlights how fragmented yet monopolized online commerce has become
So I’m mostly curious:
Is this technically feasible with existing Fediverse tech?
Has something like this already been attempted?
What would be the biggest blockers — payments, trust, logistics, identity, incentives?
Would independent shops even want this, or would it be more attractive to smaller creators?
Is there a protocol or project adjacent to this idea?
This idea honestly came from Xmas shopping fatigue and bouncing between a million tabs, wishing there was a non-Amazon way to do “one stop shopping” without recreating Amazon itself.
Curious to hear thoughts, critiques, or “this already exists and you reinvented the wheel” responses.
Also, feel more than welcome to steal the idea.
Sounds like Rakuten actually…
This is kind of how it works in countries that haven’t been infected by Amazon Prime. In Sweden for example most e-commerce is done directly from individual stores. There are aggregation sites like prisjakt which lists prices of all different stores so you can find the best deal.
It’s not perfect and maybe not as convenient as Amazon Prime, but I don’t see how a fediverse alternative could do it better.
There are economies of scale from collective warehousing and delivery. That could be run as a co-op rather than a capitalist structure.
The main reason for a store to sign up on a website would be:
- Advertising
- Centralised shipping
- Centralised handling of payments (and note, this one is especially hard due to laws surrounding KYC and complexities in handling different payment methods)
The Fediverse, being decentralised, has a hard time implementing the latter two. The first is basically not much different than being discoverable on Google.
So fun as it sounds, it won’t be easy to implement. You’d likely have to have independent “shippers” and PSPs sign up to this, and somehow have webshops choose which to use. And that’s a very awkward structure for a Fediverse-minded solution.
In the near-term, a better idea might be to establish an alternative under a co-op model, like Subvert is trying to do for music as a Bandcamp successor. Vendors are part-owners of the entity and have input into its governance. Any code should be open source, too. Federation would be great to later help turn it into a truly resilient global platform.
I think this is a good idea
I love this idea!
We have this in Czechia. Search engines that aggregate many small web shops together into a single search. Then you can go to whichever shop has the best deal or whatever. It’s what we use locally instead of Amazon, and I always feel much better giving my money directly to the small specialty shops. It’s not technically federated I guess but it achieves the same thing.
Like the other comments said, it’s prob on it’s way to becoming it’s own amazon like figure there, thats how they start out
There are actually 2. One is being more blatant about this and enshittifying in its attempt to be more like Amazon and hide the sellers. The other one is trying ads/subscription. I use the second.
We had this in Greece and it was great. Then you could order through the aggregator itself. Then it got its own delivery service that shops could use (still better than all other delivery companies). Then shops were added that don’t have their own site nor a physical shop. Now it’s trying to expand to other countries and there is a subscription that gives you lower delivery fees. It’s still good and most people buy stuff from there but it’s clear it’s trying to become Amazon and I’m afraid most similar centralized services will go this way sooner or later.
This is kinda the same process amazon itself went through back in the day
A Search and streamlined payment program would be neat, but customer support and other things would have to be the responsibility of each store, so at minimum you’d have to gather stuff like contact info and return policies in a standardized way to show users
I mean, I buy stuff off eBay a lot, and it’s often from small mom-and-pop shops. I needed new ribbon for my typewriter recently and ended up getting it from a store that just sells ink ribbons. They have an off-eBay presence too.
Same with half the comic book stores I buy from. Like gemcity has an ebay page, cant remember the others but many have amazon and ebay pages.
Amazon is more “warehousing and fulfillment” than it is “storefront”.
This would be hard to replicate without immense capital.
Love the idea in concept. One major issue is the shipping. A major benefit of Amazon is just being able to add 20 things to your cart and get them all in like 1-2 boxes. In this hypothetical scenario, you’d presumably still have to handle checkout through each individual store, and if you ordered 20 things, you’d be placing up to 20 individual orders, each with their own shipping costs.
This becomes more problematic when maybe multiple stores you’re buying from sell multiple things on your list… ideal case would be to buy as many things from one store as possible, to consolidate shipping, but what if their prices for the individual items vary? Now you’ve got to search each individual storefront for each item and calculate the difference in cost. (This store sells item A for $2 cheaper but shipping is $3.50, is there another item I can add in to save shipping? They sell item B for $0.50 more, but I might save on shipping costs…)
Technically this is no worse than it is now if you’re shopping from a variety of stores rather than one megastore, but it would be a large barrier to adoption if you’re trying to capture some of the “fed up with Amazon but still like the convenience” crowd.
Try shopping on Discogs or EBay. They both can handle a single cart with multiple vendor items shipping from different places.
A major benefit of Amazon is just being able to add 20 things to your cart and get them all in like 1-2 boxes.
If this has worked for you in the last 5 years, your Amazon experience has been very different than mine.
It was wonderful, when they did that.
I had a horrible Amazon experience 3 or 4 years ago and haven’t shopped there since, so I’m probably remembering the time when it did work.
You get the option to pick, fewer boxes or faster delivery for some items? I always get the option.
Not quite what you want but Flohmarkt (flea market in German) is federated. https://codeberg.org/flohmarkt/flohmarkt
Yeah, I mentioned Flohmarkt in the post
Are there any instances of this? It looks promising
This is basically eBay.
Yoooo, fediverse ecom?! I love that idea.
And it’s totally doable. Ecom has been going through a “headless” revolution for a while now, meaning way better APIs and metadata.
There’s A LOT of problems in the ecom world around product images, availavle inventory, and metadata accuracy, but it’s definitely worth exploring.
Requires a fully funded and staffed public postal service in a county that’s dismantling, privatizing, and outsourcing core components of public sector package shipping
