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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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[–] 129 points 1 year ago (93 children)

Would be very cool if it actually had basic functionality, like searching for items that are actually near me and not 3045390 miles way...

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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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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

    How are you so widely misunderstanding how it works? There is an location specific instance that you join when you are interested in classified ads from that location.

    This isn't a website like Alibaba for global sellers to market their products. It is a location specific classified ads page and works exactly like most of them do.

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

    Yes that is the explicit design goal of Flohmarkt and a vital prerequisite for a decentralized system. The only nearby federation is a default setting that is very easy to configure in Flohmarkt.

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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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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    The general population is used to facebook and can't even imagine an different alternative, and just copying facebook is pointless as you just end up with another Facebook with the same bad incentives for the people running it.

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

    If only there were some kind of middle ground... sadly only extremes exist 😔

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

    Well, this is a more philosophical question, but it is a result of misaligned incentives and not because someone is having some evil master-plan. Most of today's Facebook like sites didn't start out as evil empires, they became so basically by necessity once they chose a certain trajectory. The only way to prevent that is to have strong defense mechanisms in place from the very beginning and that then can easily appear as the other extreme.

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

    No one talks about only one possible alternative, but it is often not immediately obvious to laypersons why a defense mechanism is vital to have and can not be made a middle ground. Like for example there is no way to weaken end to end encryption a little bit to scan for CSAM, without breaking it entirely.

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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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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago*

    No, this isn't about individual persons turning bad or something silly like that. You can't have a little decentralization either, for economic reasons. Once you get large instances in a supposedly decentralized network these by necessity need to professionalize sooner or later. Which means they need to find investors and a way to gain income from it. And then the enshittification commences... it is naive to believe that you as the founder are immune to that and if you try to resist it, the investors and other staff will find a way to push you out.

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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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  • [+] -10 points 1 year ago (74 children)

    Why? To me that makes a lot of sense and this is also how similar popular platforms work (minus federation of course).

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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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  • [+] -14 points 1 year ago* (40 children)

    No? The instance covers a certain geographic location, for example a city. So what you want is already included in that. Federation adds nearby city instances to the mix.

    AFAIK all the major classified platforms (except ebay) are location limited very similar to the above.

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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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  • [+] -8 points 1 year ago* (38 children)

    You chose an instance that covers the geographic location you are interested in, for example your city. I don't get what is do hard to understand about that. Afaik Craigslist or what ever you call that US platform started out the same way.

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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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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

    All the ones I know work like that here in Europe, except ebay (and even they have country specific pages).

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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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  • [–] -5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I literally linked you the Craigslist FAQ above that shows that they have server specific locations, just like Flohmarkt.

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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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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (5 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.

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

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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 (3 children)

    Hashtags are only search filters, nothing gets posted anywere.

    And Lemmy is designed like that because it doesn't aim to be location specific, unlike classified ads pages where that is the design goal.

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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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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    You set up a server with the software that is available to you today 🤷 Don't hide behind self-inflicted learned helplessness to be a lazy capitalist consumer...

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  • [+] -8 points 1 year ago (26 children)
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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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  • [+] -8 points 1 year ago (22 children)

    What? That is 100% exactly like Flohmarkt works with server specific locations.

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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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  • [+] -8 points 1 year ago* (20 children)

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

    Obviously the server is on the internet an can be physically hosted where ever 🙄

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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 (18 children)

    There is no server yet. Just like Craiglist doesn't have a server for any place outside of the US afaik. Flohmarkt is very new and apparently more popular in Europe otherwise it is the same.

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

    Classified listings have always worked by being location specific, and that is their main appeal and why they are popular. Flohmarkt is copying that exact tried and true design and just expands it a bit with region based federation.

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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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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    Well, that is the difference between a centralized system like Facebook and a decentralized system like the Fediverse.

    But why would you not join a Swedish instance that lists only Swedish offers when you live in Sweden and are interested in offers near you?

    Flohmarkt isn't a social media site or a global market place for ordering cheap crap from China 🤷

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

    This is for a classified page. Why would you expect to find offers from the other side of the country in it, especially for a large country like Canada?

    That would be highly confusing and prevent browsing the listing for interesting offers near you.

    Classified pages are not search tools for finding highly specialized offers to order by mail from the other side of the country. They are local listings for buying used stuff that that you might have not even have known you want before browsing the listing.

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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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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Someone could set up a Flohmarkt instance specifically for motorbikes which would probably serve that niche better.

    Classified pages are however not predominantly used like that, at least here.

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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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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Because this is a location specific classified page and not a global social network obviously 🙄

    I really don't get how this is so hard to understand. 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.

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

    Commercial centralized online classified systems have a massive problem with ads from commercial sellers as a result, yes. Is that really what you want?

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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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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    There is no distinction between users and admins. You can set up your own instance if you feel like there is a demand for it in your city. That is how decentralized community owned systems work. The same is true for Lemmy.

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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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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    It is a good design goal to foster decentralisation.

    And the creator of an instance can and should hand over responsibility to a local coop or at least a different person still interested in the location the Flohmarkt instance caters to.

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

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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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  • [–] 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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  • [+] -6 points 1 year ago* (24 children)

    Craigslist has server specific locations. I am not familiar with how Facebook market works, but even ebay has country specific servers, which in Europe often means very location specific due to small countries.

    Obviously the actual physical location of the server doesn't matter. When you set up a Flohmarkt instance you can freely chose a location, the city you plan to advertise your market in for example, and then also specify a circular distance of how far to federate with other Flohmarkt instances, for example to also federate adverts from neighboring cities.

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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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  • [+] -6 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    This is ridiculous. Obviously we are not talking about dialup connections where you need to call a server with the region code and a physical location 🙄

    Craigslist might host it all on the same physical server since it does not support an open federation, but it is exactly the same concept as instance (=server) specific locations.

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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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  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago* (14 children)

    No you can't. This isn't a centralized platform.

    But like with ebay for example, you sign up on a locaction specific instance (ebay Germany, not ebay Spain) and chose your location that way.

    To my (very limited) understanding Craigslist works the same way. You sign up and as part of the sign up you are asked for the location you are interested in, which is like an instance choser which then redirects you to a server (instance, section, whatever) that only lists adverts for that specific location that you signed up for.

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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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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    From the Craiglist site:

    craigslist sites are based on geographic location

    This is a map and list of our sites:

    https://www.craigslist.org/about/sites

    You can find the closest craigslist site for your geographic location by zooming in on the map or browsing the list underneath the map.

    Please note that the site location for a posting cannot be changed.

    You will need to start your posting over again from the beginning if you have chosen the wrong site.

    It is not possible to post to more than one site at a time.

    This sounds exactly how Flohmarkt works, exept that they have a convinient map for you to find the location specific site. This would probably be a nice feature for Flohmarkt as well as part of an instance chooser.

    I guess what you are stuck up on is browsing listings, not posting them. But that is more like an intra-instance search tool similar to how there is the Lemmyverse search engine for Lemmy. But I find that of very limited use for a location specific market place like Flohmarkt, where you already know which location you are interested in and don't need a search engine or drop down box to confuse you with listing options from entirely different locations.

    I think there is some talk about adding more fine grained location specific groups to Flohmarkt (a bit like Lemmy communities), that would probably also allow posting from another federated account into them, but that would likely be counter productive as it would dillute the explicit location specific focus.

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

    Sites are not physical. Sites are not locked at signup. You are misunderstanding how Craigslist (and others) work.

    What this page is saying is "If you post in the Berlin section, and want to offer it in Los Angeles, you need to make a new post".

    You don't need a different account, a different server, or to otherwise associate with a different region.

    I'd be happy to explain if there is a part here that is confusing, I'm really not sure what you are not understanding on this.

    I'm also not putting down the idea of a federated marketplace, I would love it.

    I just think its a bad design to rely on a server setting that users have no control over. What happens if that host moves to an entirely different region? They have to keep serving that region? They can change it and all those listings are invalid?

    It isnt a good design.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago* (10 children)

    So you are only complaining that accounts are not centralized? The entire Fediverse works like that and I don't really see an issue with that.

    And why would a host change the location for their "Classified site for Berlin" instance? That doesn't make any sense, since it is location specific by design.

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

    Why is it bad design that you have a location specific page where you post location specific classified ads? Thats how all of them work.

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

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

    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.

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

    Yes you need an account from the specific Mastodon instance to post on that Mastodon instance.

    But anyways, that is besides the point. A classified listing is by design lioation specific. All your argument seems to boil down to is that you are annoyed that you don't have centralized accounts to log into different classified pages 🤷

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

    Yes you need an account from the specific Mastodon instance to post on that Mastodon instance.

    That was a Lemmy comment, but my mastadon post goes to all mastodon instances, regardless of region. Filtering or subscription is by hashtag or user. I do not get region-locked by my server to make a post, to read a post, to interact with a post.

    But anyways, that is besides the point. A classified listing is by design lioation specific. All your argument seems to boil down to is that you are annoyed that you don’t have centralized accounts to log into different classified pages 🤷

    No, that is not my complaint.

    I, as a user, cannot use this solution. I have no way to use it, as a user, because the server determines region, not the user. I, as a user, have no way to interact with flohmarkt or my local or regional community, for reasons of a design decision that is not relevant in any way to a user or a listing.

    I, as a user, can't use flohmarkt, because the design of it does not allow me to. An arbitrary, unnecessary, forced limitation. Simple as that.

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

    You are on anarchist.nexus and complain about self-inflicted / self-lerned helplessness? Are you serious? What do you think people that run your instance did? They took matters into their own hands and set it up. The same is true for Flohmarkt.

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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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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

    I am not very familiar with how the seller part of ebay works, but as a buyer I have a country specific account that only allows to bid on country specific offers. At least it was like that when I used it last some years ago.

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

    It certainly did here in Europe.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    No it doesn't. I've sold items to European buyers from my location in Canada.

    We are now at the point where you are completely fabricating your responses, and therefore no productive outcome can be achieved here.

    Have a better day.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago

    Maybe those European buyers were using the US/global page of ebay? The German ebay is an entirely different legal entity and (at least when I last used it) didn't interact with anything other than what happened on their website for Germany only. Maybe it works differently in Canada, no idea.

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

    This is why it federates, you can find offers from other instances that are further away just fine. However to make curation easier and lower the server load the admin can limit the geographic distance of federation so that for example it doesn't have to federate thousands of posts from Japan that few of the users of their location specific instance are likely interested in.

    I really don't understand why that is so hard to grasp conceptually and this is definitly good design.

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

    There is an instance of this in Denmark, that I have used a couple of times already. It is a nice alternative.

    Hope they implement "range" soon, so you can tell how far away an item is.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Oh cool, did you actually get stuff moved?

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