Monero community slams upcoming MoneroMarket project

The upcoming MoneroMarket¹ project was openly ridiculed by the Monero community in Janoher’s² announcement thread³.

The main concerns gravitate around the centralized shipping process, where goods are first sent to Janoher for verification before being distributed to buyers:

When someone buys something, they send the amount needed to the qr-code / public address generated. From there after payment has been verified in the backend, we message the vendor and they have up to 72 hours to send the package(s). They will not be sending to you directly however, they will be shipping the items to our address so that we can verify and check that the item(s) are legit and that what is posted in the description and pictures of the listing are correct. If everything works and is correct, we will then ship to the address that the buyer put down when purchasing the item(s), which is encrypted using Fernet.

What the community thinks about this system is rather clear from the comments:

I am trying to cut out the “middlemen” in my life, not add to them. Your escrow policy is a non-starter for me, forever and always.

That layout does remind me of a certain website…

I’m not sure you have thought this one through. Good luck to you.

I think the concept of having a private coin has eluded you. It doesn’t matter if I am buying eggs or cocaine. No one should be watching and since Big Brother is a Peeping Tom we have to keep the curtains closed.

IMO, this one weird “remailer” trick is the reason this market will fail.

It’s a smart way to get people to send you free stuff in the mail. “Oh you bought an iphone? Let me just… inspect that for you real quick… and it’s gone”

yeah, use decentralized private coin for transaction but centralize a bunch of illegal products shipments, that will end well. author is most likely not even 25.

So every single purchase is first sent to a middleman to be opened and inspected. That’s sketchy as fuck and you’re doubling the shipping carbon footprint.

Not only sketchy and environmentally wasteful but also extremely arrogant to think he can personally vet the authenticity of almost any item out there lol.

As honestlyimeanreally⁴ suggested, since the code is open-source, it can be forked by the community:

I will happily use the site if you enable direct deals. Otherwise, might be worth forking :)⁵

UPDATE 10/3: It seems like the website will be ready in 2 weeks and direct deals will be temporarily enabled, according to Janoher.⁶

UPDATE 10/10: Janoher shares v0.9 pictures, answers questions on Reddit⁷.