One possible implementation was laid out here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1haxrp/decentralized_anonymous_parcel_delivery_service/
Note an academic paper on the subject from 2009, I'm sure it could be
much improved by incorporating Bitcoin (multisig specifically):
http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~elli/papers/APOD_PETS09.pdf
>From the Reddit proposal:
"Here is my rough draft for the idea:
Buyer wants to purchase a product for 10 BTC.
Seller gives product to Carrier A. It's worth 10BTC. Seller puts
10BTC into escrow for himself. He will only get this back once the
buyer receives the product he ordered.
Carrier A puts 10 BTC into escrow to seller.
Carrier B puts 12 BTC into escrow to carrier A
carrier C puts 13 BTC into escrow to carrier B
Buyer puts 16 BTC into escrow, 15 are to carrier C. 1 BTC is to
himself. Once they all have put up bitcoins, they begin to ship.
If the buyer is happy, the buyer gets back 1 BTC, and the other
bitcoins are released to everyone, with everyone making a profit.
The extra bitcoin put in escrow by the buyer, and given back to the
buyer is to ensure that he has incentive to release the funds,
otherwise there is no real reason to release the funds once he has
the item.
If the buyer is unhappy, the buyer loses 16BTC, carrier C loses 13
BTC, Carrier B loses 12 BTC, Carrier A loses 10 BTC and seller loses
10 BTC and the item they shipped.
Seller must put equal amount worth into escrow to ensure that it is
the correct item, properly packaged, etc -- this ensures the seller
will not scam them by sending a block of wood instead of an iPad, as
there is no way for it to profitable if they potentially lose as
many bitcoins as they would gain.
The carriers put up the value of the items worth in bitcoins to
ensure they cannot profit by stealing the item, or replacing it.
/Carriers/ Carriers are a mixture of people that travel 30-200 miles
to/from work, school, and other places (vacation, etc) as well a
truck drivers who not only have significant space, but often travel
600+ miles per day - sometimes to and from the same place - and
sometimes various different locations. See here:
http://pastebin.com/zNJ851xh[1]
They would have a means to report their route and times via GPS
coordinates. Some Carriers may simply be storage facilities for
other carriers to drop off and load up various packages.
Since most people would be traveling anyway, they will not use up
hardly any additional expenses paying gas, insurance, vehicles, etc.
They likely will not report the small income made from being a
carrier on taxes, pay employees, etc - giving a huge competitive
advantage over traditional parcel services such as the UPS, USPS,
FedEx - potentially making this parcel service more cost effective.
Small trucking and shipping companies may profit by being able to
tap into this system to get customers/shipping assignments.
I believe such a system is in high demand, that it can be achieved,
and that I can help make it happen. All development from the get-go
will be completely open source and on a github repository.
I also believe it would work well as an Airbnb and Lyft competitor -
which is something worth mentioning again as it would be
significant. Currently lyft is being sued for no legitimate reason.
It may also come into use for overcoming distribution issues, such
as those faced by Tesla motors and other vehicles from manufacturer
to end buyer if they were so inclined to use such a service.
But... to repeat... how do we make it so the packages originating
point, travel, storage, and end point are all anonymous to everyone
except for the two parties involved for each action?
Yes.. I know "make it like the tor or bitcoin network!" It's a great
suggestion... but still, let's discuss and explain just /exactly/
how we can do that and keep the destination and origination of the
packages anonymous while paying the carriers?"
On 02/26/2015 11:17 AM, Sam Patterson wrote:
> Made a new thread for this subject.
>
> We've have people talk about using OpenBazaar for this type of thing
> before. Simon de la Rouviere wrote about replacing Uber with an OB based
> system a while back:
>
> http://simondlr.com/post/88070070168/the-blueprints-for-a-decentralized-uber
>
> I've seen a number of detailed comments proposing systems like this
> before on Reddit, I'll see if I can dig them up.
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