Market Discussions

That's not really how being a third party works. People don't use you as a third party because of quasi-legalistic following of small print, they use you because you can be trusted not to screw them. Once a third party starts writing off 100bil losses because people aren't following the fine print they will lose a lot of their credibility because they will be the one responsible for setting up and endorsing a system where you can lose 100bil for 'not posting properly'. Personally, that approach goes against everything I have ever tried to do as either a borrower or a third party. My aim has always been to look out for the interests of the people I am working with to the best of my abilities and the idea of moving from that kind of personal relationship to the role of an impersonal, mechanical contract facilitator doesn't have any appeal (especially given the other issues involved, such as monitoring like a pro combined with pretty low returns).

That's not to say the idea of subcontracting third party work is non-viable on a 'boutique' scale. Having a few reliable friends who have lodged deposits with you and who you parcel out work to directly could certainly work and help with large volumes of work. But for me, I don't really see third-party work as a business to be expanded. I do what I do for free because it is low effort and allows me some rewarding interactions with other players but anything involving concentrated effort would have to pay at least 500mil an hour to be viable as an actual business, since I can earn that through normal day to day activities. Any business version of what I do would have to a) bring in more than that, and b) bring it in frequently enough for the set-up and ongoing admin to be worthwhile. And the only thing I can think of that would be viable in the first field would be sub-contracting supercap handovers (directly, not through a thread - 'Fred, X wants a transfer - give me 100bil deposit and you can go do it and take 60% of the fee). I doubt the volume would satisfy the second criterion though.

Raw - agreed on a technical level, but doesn't how someone conducts themself during business build a small degree of trust or maybe more accurately confidence over time?

How someone conducts themselves is, of course, important but its on a level with something like how they post on the forums. You might get a sense of their character but trusting someone with large amounts of isk when they haven't been through the trial of actually holding and returning isk or assets at lower levels is silly. Conducting yourself well should get you onto the bottom rung of the ladder, the equivalent of a couple of bil unsecured loan, but not into the autonomous third-party business for non-trivial amounts.

Thanks for your replies Raw.

I would consider academia a pretty responsible position. Passing on human knowledge and encouraging the next generation to think critically is a big responsibility especially in today's politically charged climate.

I think from what you, Sabriz, and Chribba in the other thread have said. It's not possible to remove the human trust element by a technical means. The human part is integral. The idea is fundamentally flawed, although I'd love to see someone make a go of it.

humm Kon

I think the subject is probably a bit more subtle.
Mankind has always used inductive logic - the sun has risen every morning so far, therefore it will rise tomorrow.
Lets not forget that whilst the well know 3rd parties have built a solid reputation of trust that is also based on the same inductive logic. Any one of them could get bored at any time and just keep the lot. It's the number of times that they could have and didn't that generates our trust.

Surely a long period of any business working exactly as advertised is the most that any of us could hope for, especially in Eve.

Take the gambling sites as an example. Despite the many conspiracy theories it's my belief that they can make far more over the long term by keeping themselves honest than the short term snatch of cheating and loosing customers.

I don't however see that trust placed in someone who operated a service well for a long time would be any fundamentally different from trust in existing parties who already have a history of good practice. The exception being as has already been pointed out, where the trust of one is enforced by deposit and security and the other isn't.

Running a business well and doing a good job does inspire at least confidence in competence, if not actual trust.

I do acknowledge that all the above can be exploited by a dedicated scammer willing to put the work in. Ironically the scammer would need just as strong work ethic as the geniune service provider, possibly more even. But most scamming today is the laziest unoriginal Jita copy and paste spam. Kids of today eh? Can't even be bothered to criminal properly!

PS do you have a link to where you spoke about this before please?

I, too, would like to buy some reputation. I wish it was available at any cost.

A trusted player can insure or guarantee the performance of another player, but he cannot make that player trusted. And from a more cynical perspective, why would he want to? Trust is a valuable commodity, in short supply. What self-serving reason would a trusted player have to "create" more trusted players?



Good point, except I would add that there is another valid, if not sensible, reason to become a trusted third party, and that is personal gratification. Some people are quite proud of their honesty, and would enjoy flashing it around.


In a real-life business I have used Escrow.com for several hundred transactions with untrusted individuals. Most of that process is automated, so it's not a lot of work for the company that runs it. A similar service offered for EVE in-game transactions might be well-received, but unless backed by one of the gods of trust it would never be accepted. I can think of several interesting services I'd like to try offering in-game, but none would have the trust needed to succeed.