Because there’s almost nothing at stake.If I’m buying a can of Coke I am risking $1. The seller could sell cyanide but they’d probably get caught quickly and go to jail.
How? How would they get caught if they have nothing at stake? The whole concept of accountability and “getting caught” is based on reputation. If there is no reputation there is no “getting caught.” No reputation = no law = no jail. Also what’s at stake is not only your money but also your health and your life if food is involved. Dude, seriously, make some connections.
Also, what I was pointing out is that when I say how much for a can of Coke, and when you said $1, when I then said okay the contract existed. You made an offer and Inaccepted it.There is no need, and it’s impractical too, to bring lawyers or the government into the whole thing.
Now you seem to be contradicting yourself as you just started this post by saying that if someone sold cynanide in a can of “coke” and killed their customer that they’d go to jail. Isn’t that involving lawyers and government?
We have the product, price, payment terms, delivery schedule. The whole contract, without signing anything. The both parties can be illiterate, in fact, and they would still have concluded a completely valid contract.
True it’s a valid contract but that doesn’t make it a SAFE contract to participate in. It doesn’t insure that either party is reputable. You can partipate in a parfectly valid contract with a con artist and get sold a rubber duck for a grand when you thought you were going to get a duck made of gold. The contract could state “One golden duck for $1,000” it doesn’t have to state the duck is made of gold bullion, it just has to be gold, as in it could be just gold paint. Or you could buy dog food made with sawdust. It again is a perfectly valid contract but the seller isn’t producing good quality product. A valid contract doesn’t equate to security or good products.
Not everything requires police and private armies. Most people are reasonable and good. When there is little at stake or the incentives are right, people do the right thing.
Did I say everything requires police and armies? No. But most human interactions operate on the basis of reputation and communities of various kinds. People do the “right thing” when they feel a sense of attatchment or community. But they can be damn well inhuman when it comes to someone they do not feel a sense of attachment towards. Don’t believe me? The “right” and most logical thing would be to build the homeless homes. But what do people do instead? Ignore them and treat them like vermin. All over the world there are debates going on about letting Syrian refuges into “the country” be it Canada, the U.S., the UK, Russia or wherever. Now you can debate the economics of it but really it comes down to “I want to help my tribe before I help your tribe.” People are willing to let other human beings starve and FREEZE to death as a matter of course because of tribalism and attachment. Yes it can be argued that most human beings are good and will do the “right thing” but does the “right thing” include the other party at the other end of the “contract” or not. Is the person you are contracting with part of your tribe or is he the guy left to freeze to death.
By cheating someone for $1, with Bitcoin you “taint” you address. Of course it costs nothing to create a new one, but if (say) I have a market where reputation belongs to addresses who’ve traded honestly and successfully then some people will get cheated but soon after that those who haven’t will have a large market share as they will have completed 1, 5, 47 successful trades.
But this is all reputation! You started by saying that you don’t need reputation but then defend your position by citing a reputation system? If you can “taint” your address then you have just developed a reputation system. You are making my case for me.
They can still cheat by making one big trade and running away with $100 worth of payment, but for small trades it’s cheaper to take a risk or even keep buying on Amazon or eBay, than to lawyer up.
Yes but who would agree to one big trade if the person you are trading with has not developed the reputation to prove that they won’t run off with the dough? Again why contract with someone you do not trust? It’s stupid.
One of Amazon’s own products is a trusty marketplace, by the way: they control the veracity of reviews, pervent cheating, stop fake products, handle returns, etc. By eliminating Amazon you don’t just eliminate the “middleman” but also trust. For some products and services that matters, for others not. You can have multisig in place of Bitcoin, but who is the third party that takes Amazon’s place? Someone almost certainly less trustworthy than Amazon. And if he or she is also anonymou
Why does it have to be one person? Why couldn’t it be a decentralized system and set of people. For instance on the darknet if someone wants to buy illegal drugs or something they have goods held in escrow by a third party, the money too is also held in escrow, that way if either party doesn’t send their stuff they garner bad reputation and the defendant can get his goods or money back. A similar situation could be devised for checking the veracity of products. Products could be sent to a third party, or an anonymous inspector hired by the system, could order a random sample of the merchandise for testing. The tests are performed and the data is sent back to the network. If it’s good the vendor gains possitive rep and prospers, if it’s not good then the vendor loses rep and business. Either way the network prospers. A return could be handled in a similar fashion to an order except in reverse. Reviews could in themselves be a way to gain or lose reputation. If you give an accurate review you gain reputation, if you give an inaccurate review you lose reputation.
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How? How would they get caught if they have nothing at stake? The whole concept of accountability and “getting caught” is based on reputation. If there is no reputation there is no “getting caught.”
The Coke example was for a real life scenario in which nobody uses written contracts. Have you every had a formal contract to buy a drink? No. In the virtual world, of course they have nothing at stake. That’s why it’s different and that’s why I’ve been telling you with anonymity no one has managed to build a working reputation system.
Now you seem to be contradicting yourself as you just started this post by saying that if someone sold cynanide in a can of “coke” and killed their customer that they’d go to jail. Isn’t that involving lawyers and government?
I can authorize a person or multi-sig group to execute justice based on their opinion through a majority vote (Dead man's switch - Wikipedia). Of course that’s the last resort in a society where justice doesn’t work, but I wouldn’t have to use the government (or lawyers).
A similar situation could be devised for checking the veracity of products.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda.Name a functional reputation system that works with anonymity or admit there’s none. That’s all I’m trying to explain to you. Instead you’re making a mix of various real world (= doesn’t apply) or hypothetical (= works in theory) examples. If it any of that applied to crypto, we’d have a working system and we don’t. Admit it.
Maybe a workable system will be found few years from now, but at this moment there’s no solution for anonymous reputation, so why pretend otherwise?
Edit: see Andreas speaking against reputation and for anonymity. This just came out so I didn’t notice it until just now and I’m not claiming he says the same thing as I do, but the key point is he’s against reputation and identity (and your “relationship building”), and for anonymity.