Show HN: Send your items worldwide with travelers or make money while traveling

And then you go to Prison in $COUNTRY.

This idea:

1: Only makes sense in the first place as a way to avoid VAT and other tariffs, and so eventually you will get shut down and prosecuted, this is literally smuggling.

2: Certainly going to be used to move around very bad things.

3: In the extremely unlikely chance that people don't go to prison for the various crimes this either requires or encourages, and this idea takes off, Airlines will respond by finding ways to prevent it from working. That 'extra space' in your bag is currently being sold, or the airline is saving money on fuel. They have a huge financial interest in shutting this down.

If I were a country with people smuggling in, say, macbooks in this way, I would just confiscate any unopened macbook that came through the airport. In most cases people would appeal the confiscation and the macbook would be returned, but how many macbooks have to be held for good before it is foolish to use this service?

This will never work and it is a very stupid thing to try. Even attempting this requires the people carrying items to lie to airport security and customs, every single time (did you pack everything yourself? Were you given any packages to carry for another person?)

OMG this is dumb.

There is an established business model for doing this. I think it was more viable 20 years ago than it is today.

Here's a summary of how it works/doesn't work: http://wikitravel.org/en/Air_courier

Good idea but: traveller will need to know what he/she will be carrying. Will they deliver in person? Airport could be miles away from the receiver's house.

I thought about this idea myself, so let me point out the flaws in it (from my perspective):

- There is very little incentive for carriers to carry the goods and this company to turn a profit as well

- Global shipping will not be that much more expensive. Customs is what makes imports expensive

- ^^ customs. You will be skirting them a lot. What happens during a random luggage stop-and-check when the carrier is found with a $1,000 Apple laptop? Who goes to jail or is held accountable?

- What stops nefarious carriers from keeping the goods for themselves? Most carriers won't carry unknown items and when they become known (and their value) - and because the receiver won't go reporting about their Apple laptop they were expecting - theft becomes very real and likely

- Traveler logistics: Airports aren't 5/10 minutes away from most folks. Getting the goods from the sender -> carrier -> receiver can and will be a major headache

There's plenty of issues, but I'd like to see where you guys go with this, as it will be an interesting experiment.

This is actually how DHL got their start in the late 60s. They paid the entire flight ticket for people on select routes (initially SF to Honolulu), in exchange for those people giving over their luggage allowance to DHL to courier valuable documents (such as bills of lading). [1]

Two points: 1) they were more innocent times and 2) DHL restricted itself to asking third parties to only carry paper documents

[1] https://www.flexport.com/blog/dhl-bills-of-lading/

Another risk: there are various small rules for individual countries on what you can't carry in and a person carrying somebody else's luggage may not know those specific rules. (For example, flying into the Middle East with certain types of religious literature is a no-no). Huge risk for the guys carrying somebody else's personal items, even if they appear to be safe and innocent. International courier services handle a lot of risk, offer insurance, and have really improved the past few decades globally since every ships online these days.

Hey folks, thank you very much for the insightful comments. To our supporters: we will keep in touch ;)

This may just be a hackathon project. Doesnt seem to give much away and is just a lead gen. May not be serious at all. Almost an unintended early April fools for HN?

Besides the obvious risks involved I find the presentation a big turn off. Highly subjective of course.

The perfect way to ship narcotics ?

Man, the gold rush really is over.

I think you should pitch this idea to the Cartels.

Do i need bitcoins and a tor client?

this venture will not takeoff