People on eBay who don’t send the goods get negative feedback, which influences their ability to make future deals. Even that doesn’t always stop thieves; a family friend once bought an iPod on eBay and was sent a padded envelope full of crumpled newspaper. (Then he went on court TV to get his money back from the scammer, but that is another story.)
Good point, though ebay still succeeds in the sense of providing a valuable service despite the fraud. Kibotzer should probably always remain community oriented—perhaps an existing user has to recruit you and vouch for you (and for Kibotzer) before the bet starts.
Right now I’m just focused on the value of a service like this, assuming away the trust/fraud issues. I’m confident those are ultimately solvable. People are mostly pretty decent, in my experience.
By the way, thanks everyone for all the feedback! The comments would also be a great place for pointers to other anti-akrasia tools. I mentioned stickk.com already. Are there others? Anti-akrasia can be interpreted more broadly than “create new carrots and sticks”.
People on eBay who don’t send the goods get negative feedback, which influences their ability to make future deals. Even that doesn’t always stop thieves; a family friend once bought an iPod on eBay and was sent a padded envelope full of crumpled newspaper. (Then he went on court TV to get his money back from the scammer, but that is another story.)
Good point, though ebay still succeeds in the sense of providing a valuable service despite the fraud. Kibotzer should probably always remain community oriented—perhaps an existing user has to recruit you and vouch for you (and for Kibotzer) before the bet starts.
Right now I’m just focused on the value of a service like this, assuming away the trust/fraud issues. I’m confident those are ultimately solvable. People are mostly pretty decent, in my experience.
By the way, thanks everyone for all the feedback! The comments would also be a great place for pointers to other anti-akrasia tools. I mentioned stickk.com already. Are there others? Anti-akrasia can be interpreted more broadly than “create new carrots and sticks”.