Now I think about it, payment splitting for products might be more appropriate under bolt12, where the routing is specified in the invoice rather in the marketplace. I highly doubt the seller wants the splits to be known by the buyer.
Discussion
Perhaps but I think some way to easily split payments on real world orders would be amazing.
Affiliates payments are a natural fit. Again I think some form or smart contract escrow is needed because it will be one party that processes refunds.
Right now though I make a few thousand most months in affiliate sales for people with seminars and such. If I was paid instantly there'd be no 1099s, no accounting on their end, etc. They get their piece and I get mine.
Right now it is a month out minimum, sending email reminders, (where are the monies said like Fat Tony) etc. Paypal fees, on and on.
Right now escrows over lightning (ala HODL invoices like robosats) are limited to about 24 hours and require a third party to resolve disputes.
Dispute resolution requires a third party to make a judgement for one or the other party, and in order to do so the funds need to be held in trust until two of three parties agree who should be paid. The problem with shipping products is this can take weeks or months.
I believe the de-facto resolution to this underlying need for third party conflict resolution was solved first by ebay with the reputation score. This is why nostr is a perfect platform for a marketplace, your social media reputation is tied to your financial reputation. Then your transaction history score becomes an asset you should want to protect and thereby everyone is motivated to be honest without the force of government.
There will always be cases where people get pissed off at one another because someone was late, got sick, thrown in jail, in a car accident, shipped the wrong thing or was dicking around with payment. You don't have protections like that on Craigslist either, so a marketplace based on reputation should be as good as a handshake agreement, and you should have the same level of trust established with your service providers that you chose to business with and are part of your splits.