> IMO no dark net market will ever be bigger than an app you can download on iOS and Android

I heavily doubt that and think you heavily underestimate DN markets by service and volume. We live in crazy times, that's sure.

Well, other services like CP and fraud don't matter because we're only talking about drugs anyway. I don't think I do underestimate the markets, but we never defined biggest in the first place and neither of us have any data so it seems moot.

The number of times I've tried to get friends to make orders on DNMs over the years with no success. If I'd just passed them a Telegram username and told them to download the app they'd have done it there and then.

How do you order on "DN markets"? Can you give me a three-paragraph howto, starting from the point where I have cash, a card or the kind of paypal/bank/… most people have, but not any particular software installed.

I ask because… if this is something a lot of people do, then it must either be really simple or there are howtos on youtube/quora/… and I can't find any howto.

You can just open it up and take a look yourself, it's no hidden secret it's just well encrypted.

It's not complicated at all

I feel that there's a lot hidden in that word "just". The shopping sites you have in mind, are they searchable using google? Do they accept visa cards or paypal?

You wrote that GP "heavily underestimate DN markets by service and volume". If those markets can't be found using mass-market search engines and don't accept payment using mass-market payment services, then I think they're either nïche or you need to explain how they reached large volume.

I am not really sure where you are going at. You can very well Google this all (at least in Switzerland you find clear results) the time where onion.to was actually properly indexed in Google is over tho, but that was a thing not to long ago as well.

A crypto wallet, that connects to one of those multi Billion Dollar networks, very well could be viewed as 'mass market payment service'. I at least know more people using crypto than PayPal, most no 'hackers'.