My wife Karin was complaining to me about how much Airbnb charges guests booking our accommodation. A $75 apartment charge and $50 cleaning fee becomes a $200 total charge once Airbnb adds their frankly extortionate $75 booking fee.

I told her Uber takes over 80% from each fare booked via the Uber app, leaving the poor Uber drivers with less than 20% of which they need to pay for fuel and associated vehicle costs, leaving them with fuck all.

Then I started thinking about Amazon which has been described as a private fiefdom, levying large fees upon their merchants and cancelling any items and or merchants they do not approve of.

I started wondering if apps similar to Airbnb, Uber or Amazon could be built on Nostr? I don’t know if it’s possible to build an app similar to Airbnb or Uber, but if any developers could do it, I’m sure the mighty and enlightened Nostr could. An Amazon equivalent marketplace can’t be too hard. We’ve already got the payments platform sorted. It would be appropriate devs should apply a fair V4V royalty for their efforts, but nothing like the rapacious fees charged by these obscene corporations.

Few things would give me greater satisfaction than seeing these parasitic rent-seeking corporations market share ebb away to nothing. I’m sure I’m not alone in this sentiment.

Any takers, devs?