The Trader Economy
December 10th, 2002 by Will
What is Trodo ?
Trodo is a place to trade stuff. It is a friendly barter system. It is a bazaar. It is place to swap stuff. It is a place to share. It is a place to meet people who have stuff you want. It is a place to find out-of-date and hard to find stuff. It is a place to give people stuff you don’t want, and to get stuff they don’t want.
It is also largely empty of things to trade right now since it just launched. However, it will be interesting to watch to see if it can gain traction.
One Response to “The Trader Economy”
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I’m replying to your MeFi comment here because I’m not one of the lucky ones with a MeFi account :(
Someone said: If two friends fake transactions, they can build up counterfeit credits.
To which you replied: I don’t see how that would work. Each transaction takes a credit from one person and gives that credit to the other person. It’s like energy - it can’t be created only exchanged. Although it’s refreshing to see so many people working on the problem of how best to game the system.
To which I reply:
Think about it. People can post as many items for trade as they want. So Joe Script Kiddie gets a list of books, and a script to post each for trade over a days time. (or does it by hand…)
Then they use a script to create throwaway accounts (each with three points!) and start requesting trades from their first account (or have their friends do it with their accounts). Now just leave feedback for each transaction, and you’ve just cheated the system.
Points are not finite. Every new item posted for trade is a new point waiting to be received, and every new account puts three new points into the system. Unfortunately, “gaming the system” could probably be done in 30 lines of perl!
I still think the site is a neat idea though, and I’ll probably make an account on the good faith that the system will be revised soon to protect against abuse. I’ve got stuff to get rid of, and all I have to lose is the shipping fees, which would be worthwhile if I can get even a couple things sent to me in return.