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flohmarkt a federated alternative to ebay and facebook marketplace (codeberg.org)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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[–] 47 points 1 year ago* (92 children)

By default Flohmarkt recommends to set a location and only federate with instances in a certain geographic distance. So if you only see far away ads, then you are either using the wrong instance or the instance is misconfigured.

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  • [–] 62 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I only see far away ads because there are no public instances on my continent, as far as I can tell.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    Wait, you mean it actually won't let you set your location and search for local ads?

    If someone is going to build a site for selling things, that's 'kind of' the most important part of the site. Having it be federated makes that a thousand times worse. Now I'm supposed to find other local federated services in my area?

    That is so against how any of this works.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

    I'm just going by what's said here because i'm not about to go through installing it to find out.

    So every town that wants to sell things needs to host their own instance? And make sure that their instance doesn't federate with other towns that are 'too far away'?

    edit:

    OK I read the readme.

    Why not just setup communities on the server as locations? Why is there a need to install another server for every location that wants to sell things? Certainly one server could handle thousands of locations.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    the explicit design goal

    IMO, it's a bad goal. Not that decentralized is a bad goal, but dictating the amount of decentralization will decimate wide adoption.

    A server for every community is also a Mastodon goal that never really happened. Sure there are some out there, but the general public doesn't want that. It's a waste of compute resources to run a 24x7 server for every community. It's a problem of scale. I get the decentralized point, but I think it's going to utterly fail at widespread adotion if it needs a technical caretaker and a $20 a month bill evey time a zipcode wants to sell things. It migth work well in Germany, it's not going to work well in most places.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    But only accepting one possible alternative is an extreme. You can build in safeguards... but if they're too rigorous you will drive away potential users. Much like with freedom and security, you need to middle ground between accessibility and defensibility.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    If there's only ever one avenue of attack, sure. Your example posits that encryption is the only security layer that exists, which is laughable. Most security breaches happen at the personnel level, not the technical one.

    A site does not "become facebook" just because it's not 100% decentralized from every other possible service. Countless other factors go into it. Not the least of which is the nature of the people running it. If you run a service, and make it nigh impossible for a general public (your main market) to use because you fear it will become compromised, you are basically saying that you will compromise it otherwise, and probably shouldn't be running that service.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    I didn't say copy facebook

    I'm not saying don't decentralize at all

    Forcing people to decentralize isn't* going to work in most places.

    I'm not spending any more time on the subject, I think we're at an impassse and neither of us are going to change our minds.

    Honestly, it's a great project though,

    best of luck

    edit: brain said isn't, fingers wrote is't, autocorrect did me dirty

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  • [–] 35 points 1 year ago (75 children)

    So location is by instance and not by user?

    That seems an odd (and kind of problematic) design...

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  • [–] 40 points 1 year ago (41 children)

    Because we are talking about physical items.

    The distance I would go to pick something up is relative to me, not relative to the server I'm connecting to. Shipping I may want to limit by country of origin/destination due to taxes or available shipping services.

    It also means the issue of the user above - no one from North America even has a server option, which limits use. From a physical goods perspective, there is not a single option I'm aware of that limits region by server location.

    Its always by user location.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago* (39 children)

    I'm in the United States.

    Can I join and see the city closest to me? Or search by distance from me?

    Me, not the server. Because the descriptions sound like thats not the case.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago* (37 children)

    So by server.

    There are no online classifieds I know of that work like that.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (23 children)

    There aren't servers in each of those locations.

    Its a designated region for users to make use of. User based, not server based.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (21 children)

    server specific

    Maybe there is some miscommunication here.

    Does the user determine their geographic region of themselves as a user, or is that determined by the server?

    (Again, Craigslist works by the user picking a location, there is absolutely not a physical server at those locations)

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (19 children)

    chosing the instance that covers the geographic location you are interested in, just like you chose the location of the server in Craigslist.

    No, I can't.

    Because as you just said, the server is limiting the region. Making it server and not user.

    There is no server for my region (or continent), so its not something I can use without standing up my own server.

    I would not consider that a good design. Its extremely limiting to adoption and expansion.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    There is no server yet

    There shouldn't need to be is my point. Its an arbitrary limitation.

    Just like Craiglist doesn't have a server for any place outside of the US afaik.

    Thats a business decision, purely. They charge for certain types of postings.

    Flohmarkt is very new and apparently more popular in Europe otherwise it is the same.

    Its really not though - there is no technical reason to lock a user to a region or business reason like with Craigslist. It was a design decision.

    One that limits use and adoption.

    I'm glad its working out well in Europe! I, as an american, can't use it without standing up a server and then being host to all of the United States (or North America? No idea).

    Not "don't want to" but "can't".

    I think you are confusing Flohmarkt with an online retailer market like Amazon or Alibaba.

    All of my earlier examples are direct comparisons. I'm not confusing it with anything.

    I just think it wasn't a well thought out design.

    Classified listings have always worked by being location specific

    Not based on where the server is set to. Based on where the user or item is.

    Flohmarkt is copying that exact tried and true design

    I would say they are copying hyper-localized newspaper classifieds, including the hyper-localized aspect, which caused newspaper classifieds to stop being used by the overwhelming majority of people when alternatives like Craigslist, eBay, and even Facebook market came about.

    Tried, yes. True... Well, I'd have to disagree.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I would say they are copying hyper-localized newspaper classifieds, including the hyper-localized aspect, which caused newspaper classifieds to stop being used by the overwhelming majority of people when alternatives like Craigslist, eBay, and even Facebook market came about.

    Good reply, I was coming to that conclusion based on the same response from them on my example of buying from another area. It is very odd that anyone would place such limits on functionality on an internet-bound platform.

    I'm having trouble understanding if this person is representative of flohmarkt or not, but either way, I don't think they understand any of our questions or arguments.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    It is very odd that anyone would place such limits on functionality on an internet-bound platform.

    And a federated one at that! Creating silos like this is... Counter intuitive.

    I'm having trouble understanding if this person is representative of flohmarkt or not, but either way, I don't think they understand any of our questions or arguments.

    They admin slrpnk.net, no idea of their involvement with flohmarkt.

    I think its safe to say they don't understand or don't care about any concerns though, agreed.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    Yes but I can hi to Facebook market place Kijiji whatever and say search here at this distance. I'm not limited to searching Sweden because I joined a Swedish server.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Decentralization is not the issue here. This is a design choice that doesn't understand how the service will be used.

    In the example of my country, Canada, let's say I have two flohmarkt servers: east and west. To look for a certain make and model of car, I have to check my region first, then sign out, sign back into the other region?

    Why would anyone continue to use this as a shopping mechanism?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    They are local listings for buying used stuff that that you might have not even have known you want before browsing the listing.

    That is not how I nor anyone I know uses our listings on Kijiji. I go to look for specific things i don't want to buy new. I do not browse used stuff for sale. I've personally bought motorbikes 600km away because the search area has to be bigger for more niche items. I also set up the sale of a car to a guy 1800km away via kijiji.

    I couldn't do either of these using flohmarkt, so it isn't really useful to me, federated or not.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Lets say I live in the United Stats for 6 months out of the year, Spain for 2 months, Japan for 2 months, and Brazil for 2 months. Based on this design, I need servers to exist in 4 different regions.

    Why?

    If I'm on anarchist.nexus, I can browse lemmy.ca. I can make a local community on anarchist.nexus for my town. A user from feddit.dk can then browse and chat with me. Maybe they lived there? Maybe they'll be back for a month in a few weeks! They can post about that in my extremely localized community.

    If we switch that to items - that user from feddit.dk can't post a listing to my local community, can they?

    Why is it determined by a server region? Why isn't it, for example, a server dedicated to listings about sports memorabilia? Do I care where the signed baseball I want to buy is? Do I care where the buyer is from that wants my tennis racket I've put up for sale?

    What relevance is the region to the server? The relevance is to the listing.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    not a global social network obviously

    So.... whats the point in federation?

    This is how all of these classified pages have always worked all the way back to when they were still printed in local newspapers or were just a pinboard in the local supermarket.

    It is exactly how classifieds in newspapers or a board at a supermarket works, yes!

    It is in no way how an online classified system (craigslist, ebay, offerup, etc) works.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Commercial centralized online classified systems have a massive problem with ads from commercial sellers as a result, yes.

    Lets go to the example from earlier - craigslist. They do not do advertisements. Specific types of listings cost money. That is how craigslist makes money.

    Do you mean sellers who make listings in many locations? Does flohmarkt have any controls to prevent that? Because from what I can see.... no, it doesn't.

    Again, lets return to the actual problem:

    How do I, as a user in the United States, join and participate? As a user, not an admin. Right now.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    There is no distinction between users and admins.

    I'm sorry, but this is an absolute horror show of a sentence.

    You can set up your own instance if you feel like there is a demand for it in your city.

    Why would I need a whole new instance for that? What benefit is there to locking an instance to a region rather than a listing to a region?

    Its not a technical limitation. Its not even a functional limitation for the trade or sale of someone's stuff.

    What happens when that server owner changes their region that they live?

    Do you expect each person to stand up their own instance?

    How do I, as a user, and lets assume I don't have the technical ability or the infrastructure necessary to support standing up my own instance, use flohmarkt in the United States?

    What technical reason is there for this limitation?

    What functional reason is there for this limitation?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    It is a good design goal to foster decentralisation.

    Its a shitty design that fosters silos.

    And please stop demeaning yourself as a user. Are you a drug addict or what?

    Stop being an asshole. I'm explaining a position and a use case, which is used for good software design.

    This is a shit design. Many others have said the same and expressed their concern. You have decided to act like an asshole for no reason while I tried to explain why its a problematic design. You do that from a user perspective.

    There is zero reason for you to suddenly behave like a rotten kid who was just told his toy wasn't made well. Grow the fuck up.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It seems like on CL the city labels are mostly for human readable convenience and behind the scenes it's by distance. You can set a distance from any point:

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Craigslist, freecycle, Facebook market, offerup - they all go by user region, not server region.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    I think youre misunderstanding that page - those are regions, they are not server specific. You aren't connecting to a different physical server hopping between 5 different cities across the United States (well you might be with CDNs but thats kind of besides the point).

    They are designations - like an MQTT topic or a community here on Lemmy/piefed.

    I can start a local community for my city here on anarchist.nexus, and a friend can create one for his local city in Canada. Its the same server, but the regions covered are different.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I can’t post on a Mastodon instance with another instance account, only comment on people’s posts. This is the same way Flohmarkt does federation.

    Can you create a hashtag for australia with your account on a US server? Can you create a hashtag for France while living in Poland? Can you create a post with a hashtag for Romania while living in Scotland?

    I also can’t create an community on Lemmy with an account from another instance.

    I can easily create a post for any location without requiring an account for that instance.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Please explain to me how I, as a user in the United States, can use flohmarkt, with the current servers available and online today.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago* (25 children)

    I have no clue where Facebook marketplace servers are. That has never been relevant to me. Kijiji is a popular online marketplace in Canada, and it let's you pick location or have it choose automatically based on your location.

    This may be a simple matter of European marketplaces and North American ones having fundamentally different approaches.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (17 children)

    Craigslist has server specific locations.

    No, Craigslist has region specific sections.

    The location of the server is not relevant. The servers are all hosting the same information, the user is picking the region they wish to browse.

    There are not physical servers (or even virtual) to host each of those locations. They are subdirectories on a web host.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

    I'll ask again - can I join any server and set my location and get local content for me, here in the United States where there is currently no server listed as being online or available?

    Edit: to be clear, if I can - great! The descriptions kind of suck then and should be changed.

    If not, then yeah - I would not consider that a good design/model for classifieds.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    Craigslist does not work that way, no.

    You can change the region you are looking at any time you'd like. You are in no way locked in by a region or the signup process.

    You are asked for a location to direct you to your local community/topic/subdirectory. You can then change that location at any time by browsing the location section of the site. You can see this now if you'd like, go to Craigslist and click the location dropdown in the upper left, and you can change where you want to browse at any time.

    This isn't a centralized platform.

    Its federated, thats not really a problem.

    No you can't.

    Thats the problem.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    No, I'm complaining that the server determines a user and items location.

    You don't need centralization for that. If I'm making a post, I should be able to set the location for the item at that point - this information is federated, so then the user's server is irrelevant, only the location the user sets is relevant.

    That is what makes this a bad design. It has nothing to do with centralization.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Because the ability to post is locked to a server's region.

    As you said, I can't go in and browse the United States listings. Why? What technical reason is there to prevent me, as a user, from wanting to join?

    NOT as an admin. As a user.

    Lets think of this like mastodon and hashtags for a second. If the hashtag were a location, why would I need to join aus.social to see the hashtag location for Australia? Why would I need to join mstdn.ca to see the hashtags for Canada?

    I think the flohmarkt design inherently works the opposite of other federated designs. It is limiting by design, limiting server use by region, rather than what a user is choosing to follow.

    I'm concerned I'm not explaining something properly, so if there is a part that isn't making sense to you, let me know.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Why would a classified site for Berlin allow you to post ads for Chicago? Just use a classifed site for Chicago 🤷

    Because the same user regularly travels to both. A separate post would be absolutely fine, but I shouldn't need an entirely different site for that. Its a listing.

    And no, the Federation model of Flohmarkt is like Mastodon, Lemmy is the odd one out, but also Lemmy does not allow starting communities on other servers. You need a local account for that.

    I do not need to create an account on a different server to post on that server.

    I only need the one account. I am not blocked from posting in lemmy.ca because I live in the US, I'm not blocked from posting in midwest.social because I don't live in the midwest.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    No it has country specific URLs. And the seller can list stuff on what instances they want. Even though lots of. Cin ship internationally.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    You must be joking. Ebay does not now, nor has ever worked that way.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    It"s one thing to limit searches bases on geographic location of items, but I should be able to change that to look up items at a destination to which I'm travelling, or just to compare to my area.

    Plus, I might be more willing to travel farther to get a used car than a loveseat.

    This is def bad design.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Agreed. I've made a day trip to the neighboring state to buy a used car from a CL listing, but I probably wouldn't travel to the other side of the country for it.

    Similarly, for many things I wouldn't travel more than an hour to get them.

    The distance radius really needs to be adjustable per search to be useful outside of densely populated areas.

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