From my POV the main problem with these kinds of efforts is less the software interface, and more that trying to cooperate with strangers to share stuff, or to buy/sell stuff, is often extremely frustrating because people are frustrating. Not showing up, not returning things, scammers, last-second haggling, managing schedules for handing stuff off. It can be a rather large time cost which, in many cases, just isn’t worth the hassle even if we had a perfect software tool to facilitate it. Unless, that is, you’re dealing with a group that has existing IRL relationships (in which case the app isn’t doing much of the work).
I came here to say exactly this! It’s one thing to build an app, but quite another to built the institution that makes it work.
So apart from having members exchange physical goods, and someone to take care of the technical machine, someone has to invest time to tackle all the moderation work to limit bad actors’ effects on the series of trades.
There was a flourishing of apps like this around the ’10s with stuff like couch surfing and tool trading apps etc but most have died off, leaving bigger players like Facebook marketplace or Craigslist precisely because, as I believe, they didn’t have a plan to tackle the institutional work—instead just believing strangers will sort things out between themselves.
Two years ago I downsized from a house to an RV, which meant selling, giving away, or tossing most of what I owned. Most items I posted online went through multiple instances of someone saying they wanted it, then not showing up (without even a message to say so) at the agreed upon time.
From my POV the main problem with these kinds of efforts is less the software interface, and more that trying to cooperate with strangers to share stuff, or to buy/sell stuff, is often extremely frustrating because people are frustrating. Not showing up, not returning things, scammers, last-second haggling, managing schedules for handing stuff off. It can be a rather large time cost which, in many cases, just isn’t worth the hassle even if we had a perfect software tool to facilitate it. Unless, that is, you’re dealing with a group that has existing IRL relationships (in which case the app isn’t doing much of the work).
I came here to say exactly this! It’s one thing to build an app, but quite another to built the institution that makes it work.
So apart from having members exchange physical goods, and someone to take care of the technical machine, someone has to invest time to tackle all the moderation work to limit bad actors’ effects on the series of trades.
There was a flourishing of apps like this around the ’10s with stuff like couch surfing and tool trading apps etc but most have died off, leaving bigger players like Facebook marketplace or Craigslist precisely because, as I believe, they didn’t have a plan to tackle the institutional work—instead just believing strangers will sort things out between themselves.
Two years ago I downsized from a house to an RV, which meant selling, giving away, or tossing most of what I owned. Most items I posted online went through multiple instances of someone saying they wanted it, then not showing up (without even a message to say so) at the agreed upon time.
It’s a bit ironic that the app idea doesn’t work in practice for the same reasons that communism doesn’t work in practice.
Do you want to elaborate on that?