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.
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?