>Even beyond that, how often do you want to do business with / complete a transaction with someone who you trust THAT little?

Not often precisely because of the risks but if those risks are minimized it can expand your range of potential business partners.

How does a blockchain ensure they ship the materials I requested? Did they harden the metal properly? Were the electronic parts purchased from a reliable supply chain so I don't get reclaimed ones? Did they use the right PSI steel? Did they test to known and documented quality standards, or do they ship me the ones that work, but fail quality checks that they reserve for their big customers?

I have manufactured a lot of electronic and physical products, and have had a lot of supply chain issues, but not one of them would have been solved with a blockchain.

Meanwhile the concept of escrow has exited for millenia and already solves that problem. 99% of the proposed usecases for blockchain can be done much more effectively with tech, infrastructure, and systems that have existed forever.

It's a lot like all the hype over NoSQL, when the principles underlying traditional relational databases have already been a solved problem since the 70's and work for 99% of use cases.

I'm not sure there would be a desire to do so. I think that often trust to some extent is a baseline requirement for most people to do business in the first place.

You are getting it backwards.

Do you know always who is on the other side of a purchase that you do online? I can bet you don't, yet you still do business because you trust the intermediary (credit card provider, Amazon, whoever) to ensure that both parties are getting what they want.

Blockchain and "trustless" systems are there for people who want to make business but do not have these intermediaries, or when the intermediaries themselves are not trustworthy (corrupt governments, inefficient companies, etc).

It is fine to buy a few things from an untrusted supplier off Amazon. It is a whole other issue to run production based on unreliable or untrusted suppliers. I have yet to ever see a company serious about production that would do this.

Are you in production? Or just think this is a good idea?

Until 2017, I haven't seen anyone that could raise capital from total strangers and start a company. In 2019 I was working at one of the many companies that did just that.

Until last year, I haven't seen anyone so investing in derivatives without a bunch of capital and access to a reliable brokerage. Today, you can do it without even having a bank account on your name.

> Are you in production? Or just think this is a good idea?

I am not in production, but the thought of creating business and opportunities that do not require trust between parties seems amazing to me.

It isn't. One of the reasons why e.g. the stock market is so huge is that participants rarely need to trust each other as the guarantees are provided elsewhere. Imagine if every buyer had to trust every seller (and vice versa) on every transaction.

Because they trust the exchange who does more than blockchain though. That example seems off.

..And here you can trust the blockchain instead of the other party.

I don't think Blockchain provides what an exchange provides.

How many friends do you have that you would be willing to pay a round of beers or cover their tab at a restaurant?

How many of those friends would you put to invest in a house with you?

Hell, how many of those friends do you trust to give you a backup key to your house for emergencies?

Trust is not binary.

I'm not sure I understand the point of the questions. Why wouldn't I do those things if someone is a friend?

I think the level of trust at the point you do business may in fact mostly be binary. The scale of 'so little trust I need to use blockchain' is pretty high, I'm not sure there are that many reasons to do so.

Really? Of all of the people you have some kind of friendly relationship, you wouldn't hesitate to put a more significant amount of resources at risk with any of them?

> The scale of 'so little trust I need to use blockchain' is pretty high.

Let's say a family member comes to you and say: "hey duxup, I have some medical bills to pay but I am short of a couple of grand. If I go on my credit card they will charge me 10% interest/year. So I was thinking of borrowing it from you and pay you 5% interest. By the way, here is the key to my car which is worth double the debt, the car is yours if I don't pay in time. It's a good deal for me, it's a good deal for you and you have no risk of losing your money"

You might say "Oh, it's a family member, so I trust you. You can have the money, pay back whenever you can". Which is fine. Or you can actually say "Alright, I will take the deal" and just hope that he gets to pay you back without any incident. In any case, no legal entities involved (every one is just going by the word) and the cost of settling a dispute is more of social capital (family troubles) than actual money.

Now, suppose that instead of a family member, it is a co-worker that you know for just a short while. You don't know if the person really had medical issues and you have no personal reason to be connected to the person. But you can get the keys for the car and you got some kind of legally-binding document regarding the conditions of the loan. It seems like a good deal, so why not take it? Not to mention the social capital, is a couple of hundred dollars "profit" worth the risk of having to deal with an someone you don't really know and all the potential troubles?

Now, supposed that instead of a co-worker, it is a total stranger online. You have no clue if the person needs the money for medical bills or if the money is for cosmetic surgery. In fact, it could be just for them to spend on drugs. Still, whoever is proposing the deal has placed a token that controls ownership of a car under a smart contract. If the loan is not paid, you get the token and you can easily sell the car on a distributed marketplace. And by the way, the token keeps a verifiable record of the car history, so any potential buyer can be sure of its value. All of this (giving the loan, checking the car value, signing on the deal, enforcing the rules and resolving potential conflict) can be done on a web3-enabled browser and costs maybe ~$10 in transaction fees. Why wouldn't you take such a deal?