When decentralized Bitcoin powered app for finding places to stay 🤔
Discussion
That would be great. WWW. HOTELS.BTC
It has been tried multiple times and has always failed. It’s incredibly complex to implement! Particularly the question of how to protect BOTH renters & hosts in a decentralized market is a tricky question.
Reputation systems are vulnerable to Sybil/spam attacks and some kind of proof-of-work or witness/oracle system would be required.
And even if these problems could be solved (they can but that’s another story) how do you bootstrap? When #airbnb started they were the first, without competition, but now you would need to convince users to switch away from Airbnb and the argument “crypto” is not enough. In fact, it could scare users away!!
Ideas like yours are typical: Easy said, but NOT easy done!!!
I recognize the magnitude of the issue. But if the govt is able to crush Airbnb then people will begin looking for solutions elsewhere.
Given the problems with many online market places, the better idea is probably some sort of broader ebay like classifieds network which could include airbnb like listings.
Some sort of identity solution is a big piece of the puzzle (slashtags maybe) but what is REALLY needed is some sort of 2 party escrow which may not be possible over Lightning. Maybe built in (possibly hidden) Lightning to Liquid swaps & Liquid escrow contracts could be a fix. Once escrow is solved then bootstrapping becomes somewhat easier because people can sell & ship things with less risk & the network effect can grow.