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Comment by Touche | Hacker News Reader

What need is there for selling non-illegal things in a darknet market? Let's be honest, OpenBazaar will be used to sell drugs, stolen ids, and other illicit things.

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if one would have introduced back in the days the concept of the internet with it's possiblities, it's positive effects and it's dark side - it wouldn't have happened!

People would have declared it a danger, a lawless non-place which poisons the youth and will be dominated by child porn and surely not by kitten pics.

Therapeutical herbs. Prohibited books.

If these are illegal, then you're not really presenting a counter-case that darknets are only useful for illegal trade. If they're not, you don't need a darknet to get them.

> If they're not, you don't need a darknet to get them.

False. Some things are restricted by abuse of power, not by law. For example, it's very hard to massprint antiputin agitation in Russia despite there is no law against it.

Fair enough.

> What need is there for selling non-illegal things in a darknet market?

Avoiding platform fees and payment processor fees is no small thing.

Also taxes. What is the VAT like 20%? That is a lot of savings.

And again, illegal.

That depends. Individuals generally need not pay tax for selling their private property.

I'm not sure where you live, but this is not the case nearly everywhere in the US.

It's the case in most european countries, and I am sure also in lots of other places.

No, you're probably thinking of sales tax.

Not every law/tax is fair or should even exist in the first place. You don't change things by being complicit.

I think I just down voted you by accident. Sorry. :-(

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