[circle] p2p auctions

[thomasV]

Hi there,

Sorry I have not been active for a while
(lack of time, should be better in a few months)

In the meantime I have been thinking about p2p auctions,
and reading a bit on the topic.

The current monopoly -ebay- charge huge fees to sellers
(up to 30% for small amounts), while the service they provide
is minimal (they offer partial protection against ripoff, but only
for small amounts)

There are other auction sites that have lower fees, but
the "snowball effect" is so strong that in practice people
prefer to use ebay, and the monopoly remains unchallenged.

In some other times, such a situation would have called for a
nationalization of ebay (european socialist method, unrealistic
for a multinational business, and even more unrealistic for an
IT business), of for a split into several different entities (american
capitalist anti-trust method, which does not make sense for an
auction site, because these sites gain value from being large).

I found several places on the net where the idea of p2p auctions
is presented. However, it seems that it was not implemented so far.

A DHT is ideal for advertising an auction using keywords.
In practice, the auction would take place on the seller's computer,
which should remain online during the auction (ok, this is
constraining, but it simplifies things a lot)

There are lots of issues, such as fake bids, reputation management,
etc... I do not know if it is possible to solve them. OTOH, these issues
are not really solved in the ebay system, but this does not prevent it
from working.

What do you guys think?

Thomas