So many bird projects recently and I think it’s all thanks to this project[0]

It seems IP over Avian Carriers is finally within reach!

0. https://github.com/tphakala/birdnet-go

Link missing?

Probably BirdNet, but Google also has an equivalent model now called Perch. https://birdnet.cornell.edu/

Complete guess but I wonder if it's the Merlin project?

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/merlin/

People don’t realize how big of a threat LLMs are to marketplaces like Amazon, because down the line people will just be talking to AI agents to help them find products, check out, do all of these things.

So you’re probably like, why can’t I just use ChatGPT to do that? And you can, but ChatGPT is trying to become the new Amazon. They are trying to vet stores that can check out through ChatGPT officially, and so you’re just trading one master for another.

It’s why I’m building an open-source, decentralized, interoperable marketplace. It’s powered by agentic commerce and we include a list of vetted stores but you can bring your own.

Amazon is not just the frontend. There is a whole supply chain side of it with warehouses, distributors, couriers, etc. Inventory and stock readiness, shipping, and other things will continue to be bottlenecks for consumerism at scale.

3PLs and warehouse distribution channels have gotten better and are cheaper than using FBA shipping outside Amazon.

Did you know the biggest sellers on Amazon normally have their own website and in fact, orders from Amazon flow directly into their OMS (order management system). Amazon is simply a sales channel. Also Amazon has a stronghold in western countries but much less so in gulf states, South Asia, and Africa.

As someone who ran part of their fulfillment network, I say you are completely off the mark here. Their network is the best in the world bar none. In addition to marketplace, 1P, and FBA, there are many other cooperation models where massive companies that appear to have their own distribution centers actually use Amazon's network (even co-located for some warehouses/sort centers).

There is no 3PL or other warehouse companies (many of which use Amazon's anyway) there are better than Amazon. Maybe Walmart gets close. For the case you mentioned (OMS integrations), this absolutely does NOT mean that they handle shipping. The aggressive majority of those vendors just uses FBA anyway.

If you're building your startup on the principle that Amazon is "a sales channel only", then I wish you well but you will fail.

Can you give some more information for buyers who want to route orders directly to sellers instead of via Amazon? Right now the only benefit for using Amazon is a unified shopping interface and free shipping using Prime.

Amazon's biggest feature is free returns. I would not buy even a quarter of the stuff on Amazon if I was not confident that I could easily return it.

But even that is being enshittified. You have to pay for some returns now. And people have been putting defective to get free shipping returns and Amazon has just started a fee for returning items for the wrong reason.

I only buy the stuff that says free returns (for any reason) up front.

The funny thing to me is that, for years, Shopify has been trying to position their Shop app as an Amazon alternative, but just can't get the traction. Shopify and Amazon are two very different business models - but man, Tobi and Harley want that money!

ChatGPT comes along, and suddenly it has a real shot at the global customer capture that Shopify could never manage, so they jump in bed, and release a series of garbage collaborations, some of which got rolled back (Shop on ChatGPT, but you can only have one item in your cart, lulz), and some of which just keep mutating. Shopify fumbled pretty badly, and it was wild to watch the entire industry go from "You'll be buying through the LLMs this year" to "So, let's talk about AEO, GEO, and discovery..." like nothing happened.

None of the AI companies seem to have their heads screwed on straight about ecommerce, except potentially Google. The payment processors are sniffing around, too, since at the end of all the discovery, that order needs an easy means of processing payment.

I think your open-source, decentralized, interoperable marketplace is a noble effort, but you're up against multi-billion-dollar business interests who are looking to capture revenue from processing, and have dozens, if not hundreds of people on the case not only from a development standpoint, but from a business and marketing standpoint. Maybe you've got a team like that under you, too. Best of luck.

I've thought from the start that the strongest possibilities for ChatGPT to monetize boil down to advertising (so many ethical problems), and becoming a marketplace that finally dislodges Amazon. But that is a VERY tall mountain to climb.

Exactly, Shopify can become a new Amazon with Shop but then you’re just trading Amazon for Shopify. It’s why I’m building open-source SaaS for every vertical and that’s what powers the marketplace.

You can read the ethos to learn more[0]

0. https://marketplace.openship.org/ethos

I've mixed opinions on that. For example, there are products like Google Shopping or Google Travel etc. They show up bunch of stores where you can buy a flight ticket or a particular product from.

However, in the end most people just end up buying it from top 2-3 marketplaces anyway, not because its cheaper, but also because they can trust it, it arrives in 2 days, and you can easily return it if you don't want. So if I'm going to most likely buy something from Amazon anyway, why not just use Amazon web page. They've had one click buy button for ages.

> However, in the end most people just end up buying it from top 2-3 marketplaces anyway, not because its cheaper, but also because they can trust it, it arrives in 2 days, and you can easily return it if you don't want.

I've got enough complaints about the amazon customer and user experience that I'm not going to list them here, but returns are so easy.

I click the button, and then I don't need to print off a shipping label or even package the item back up, I just drop it off at the convenience store by my house, they scan a QR code on my phone, and take the bare item from me.

Yes Amazon’s power is very difficult to overcome. The hope with my marketplace is that stores will offer cheaper prices since we are interfacing with them directly and they are not paying Amazon a cut.

Also, Amazon Prime is affordable now, but it will get more and more expensive. They have a large distribution network but most of their drivers are contractors. Amazon also is not as powerful in non-Western countries. They still rely on many different websites depending on need.

Isn't the value on same day delivery? Returns, warehouses, drivers, customer support all of that? How chatgpt is going to help with that?.

Before I could build this decentralized marketplace, I had to build open-source SaaS that the sellers use. All of that is handled by that platform. The chat simply interfaces with the API just like the built in storefront does.

The marketplace is also built in a way that you can add a Shopify adapter, BigCommerce, custom, etc. It only supports Openfront for now. Even if the store you want to interface with has a custom software, you can write the adapter code and they are added.

I don't want "vetted" stores. I don't care if it's open-source or decentralized or interoperable (though, fine I guess if it is). What I actually want is stores that are scraped, preferably adversarially. When Amazon, Walmart et. al. try to shut you down, I will know you have something worth using.

You can use our vetted stores but add your own, it’s not restricted.

Sounds cool. Needs network effects of lots of highly rated stores to succeed, I think.

Yes but users can build adapters and bring their own stores.

Amazon still probably make it via AWS, but other websites you may be right.

This was Google's big announcement at their last I/O conference: That Google would become the agent handling all forms of commerce on behalf of the average person worldwide.

It’s because LLMs are a threat to Google Shopping too. But as a consumer, why would I want another middleman?

Nice, have a github repo? This is something I've thought about trying to build, seems like the future.

The new era of ads is this comment right here.

shudders

I legitimately thought the parent comment was satire

Reminds me of a message I got on LinkedIn on Memorial Day weekend.

"Memorial Day is an opportunity to slow down and think about the service of those who gave their lives for America and for our freedom.

We offer you freedom from the hassle of hiring your own internal engineering team by providing you with vetted, experience software engineers in the same time zone as your company."

Why it would be a threat? Unless Amazon is manipulating the marketplace for the customer to buy a product different from what they want. In that case such practice surely should attract a look from regulators?

> Amazon is manipulating the marketplace for the customer to buy a product different from what they want

There is no expectation or regulation that a store is supposed to only show customers what they want. A retailer is going to sell you the items you're willing to buy based on what they think will help them drive the most profits.

Imagine for a moment you're a store that sells millions of different products. Now, imagine a customer walks into your store, and as per some government regulation "you're expected only to show the customers who walk into your store products that they want". It's a fairly ridiculous expectation.

Also Amazon actively prevent you finding what you want, their search and filter get worse every time I use it.

Tricking customers into buying things they otherwise wouldn't is the core concept of adtech.

If you insulate humans from the manipulative dark patterns (though agent intermediaries), it's possible for them to spend less, spend more efficiently, optimize out information-asymmetries that are profit centers for entities like Amazon. Of course Amazon will fight this.

Realistically the agents will inject their own dark patterns. Whoever owns the glass owns the revenue stream, for they have the ultimate power to replace anyone else's revenue stream with their own. Some TVs detect ad spots in video content and overlay ads that pay the TV manufacturer instead.

Right. Agents in the hands of consumers (truly under their control) empowers them; agents in the hands of retailers does quite the opposite.

This is equivalent of Amazon setting up a maze in a physical store and then complaining someone is selling the maps.

Amazon has generally been a shadow of itself. Fakes and less than reputable options. An opensource / legit sourced marketplace could be useful.

What about an opensource agentic commerce chat where you have a vetted list of stores but can add your own?

If this is basically an MCP/api with curated data sources, then yes im interested.

I think there is some legit market opportunity to try to provide this to small - medium businesses. The biggest advantage Amazon has over them is visibility, and the tooling that comes with it. If you made a squarespace plugin or otherwise that would index someone's store, then that store owner would be able to get business from the shared platform, while not worrying about having a good search tool. As a potential shopper, I would have value in buying on this network, especially if I had reason to beleive the reviews were legit.

After I typed the above out I checked out your profile... you may already be working on this but I have some other ideas, can I message you?

It’s exactly what it is:

https://github.com/openshiporg/marketplace

We have people using it for B2B distribution as well, opportunities are endless.

You can reach me at junaid[at]openship.org

Once Siri gets MCP support, it’ll be my main orchestrator.

I built an app that lets me run terminals on my MacBook. It’s a Next app so I can go to that website on my phone using Tailscale. It has a built-in MCP server, so I can connect it to ChatGPT and have it create terminal sessions, orchestrate terminal sessions, all that good stuff.

Down the line, I’d like to be able to connect it to Siri and just talk to my phone and it can control terminal sessions and projects that I’m working on on my laptop.

Oh, cool. I used tailscale to provide a private web app for my cross-harness orchestrator, too. (https://github.com/BrokkAi/mjolnir/)

I'd love it if Siri does, but I don't expect big corps to keep supporting MCP since MCP gives so much control to the end user, can't charge for eg. Google integration when someone can just add an MCP to handle it.

Yes even ChatGPT locked MCP support behind plus plans for a while.

There is no evidence of that. What you say is not supporting, but rather "conveniently makes sense".

I don't dispute the utility of psychedelics. But I have observed (and this is anecdotal) that the fanatic devotees of the drugs tend to engage in magical thinking around the power/history/whatever of psychedelic substances, no matter their intelligence or accomplishment, or rigorous critical thinking in other areas.

It’s a controversial theory, but it does exist[0]. As far as I know, there is no prevailing theory about where consciousness came from so speculating based on existing theories isn’t claiming it’s the truth.

Is it such a leap that fungi are one of the few natural drugs that cause brain elasticity so maybe our early ancestors took it to get the evolutionary process started.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_ape_theory

One of the reasons this is such a long bow to draw is that, as you have absurdly reiterated and an earlier commenter posited, this is Lamarckism. If it is true, where are all the sapient reindeer and other animals that have consumed these substances as a species for as long or longer than we have existed?

I see what you did here - you assumed sapient animals HAVE to create technological civilization, didn't you?

Maybe they are sapient - you know, like the dolphins from the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy :)

How are these traits inherited by descendants who don’t consume drugs that increase the plasticity of their brain themselves?

This is from the intellectual con artist Terence McKenna. McKenna never let things like this get in the way of his theory. There was a flaw in the math of his ridiculous Time Wave Zero idea that when pointed out to him, didn't change anything. I was super into McKenna as a dumb teenager. I even had the dos program of Time Wave Zero. The idea McKenna would be taken seriously on anything after December 21, 2012 is really an interesting study in the power of the cult of personality. The stoned ape idea has more holes than swiss cheese. None of the least being that the actual study he based this idea on with edge detection didn't even say what he claimed it did. Distorted form perception as opposed improved edge detection, something that makes perfect sense to anyone who has tripped. He is not even a clever fraudster. It is just hard to know as a dumb teenager that James Joyce and Whitehead's Process and Reality are intentional choices in the unintelligible and the obscure so they could mean whatever McKenna needed them to mean.

You'll get more buy in on your ideas if you didn't present them so bitterly. Your comment seems like you were let down after getting highly attached to the theory.

I'm aware of the theory. I'm not aware of any explanation offered by the theory as to how those who first experienced consciousness via psychedelics managed to pass consciousness on to their descendants. It doesn't make any sense. If you cut the tail off a rat, it doesn't have tailless children.

This theory relies on not defining consciousness. My dog certainly appears to be conscious, and I doubt there is any evidence of some canine use of psychedelics.

Reconciling the profound interiority of the experience with a mere external catalyst can be quite challenging.

Consider the question yourself next time you are in the throes of an exoerience and see how hard it is to maintain objectivity...

How are psychedelic chemical compounds “a network”? Are you referring specifically to fungal mycelium? Of course there a tons of non psychedelic mushrooms and tons of non-mushroom psychedelics

Just for clarification. The default mode network is what activates when we are at rest or ”not focused on the outside world”. Ie daydreaming and mind wandering, even if it also can be active during detailed thinking.

It has also been shown to have negative correlation to networks in the brain associated with attention.

There are a number of problems with these statements, but a major one is that psychedelics are associated with reduced activity within the DMN (but increased activity between the DMN and other networks). It is not clear the direction in which this causality runs.

> psychedelics are what lead to the formation of consciousness

This reads like recycled lamarckism.

"This reads like recycled lamarckism."

Recycled Lamarckianism would be Lysenkoism. :)

> I read many years ago that psychedelics are what lead to the formation of consciousness

I have never taken psychedelics but I believe myself to be conscious.

This hypothesis was clearly written by someone who was on psychedelics when they wrote it.

> psychedelics are also a network like the brain is

Sorry to be rude, but what the hell does that mean?

Fungi grow as a vast interconnected network and can communicate to other fungi. Similarly to how the neurons in the brain communicate.

In fact, when you take fungi, it tones down common neural pathways and allows new ones to form between new places.

Ok, but there are plenty of psychedelics that don't come from fungi.

Meth is a crystal, and crystals vibrate in synchronous harmonicity. What does this tell us about meth?

... no, the fact that some hallucinogens are derived from fungi does not give rise to consciousness. I accept that you read that somewhere; that does not make it true. But, really bad ideas do seem like amazing epiphanies if you're under the influence!

Or take DMT as a crystalline, naturally produced substance. As far as I know, there's no Methamphetamine in nature, although I've become very careful with the terms none/all in biology.

Nice strawman you got there. Meth is a man made synthetic compound. Fungi cover this earth and are one of the few natural drugs that cause brain elasticity and can cause personality change.

The theory is real and, of course, controversial[0]. The formation of consciousness is still a mystery and I’m simply discussing a theory. If you have another theory you deem right, let’s argue on merit, not personal attacks.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoned_ape_theory

A theory can be "real" in the sense that people believe it, and also controversial because it has little consistent evidence behind it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

Nowhere in my comment did I attack you personally. I made an analogous argument; reductio ad absurdum. LSD is also a man-made synthetic compound, and promotes neuroplacticity. And if you've ever known a meth addict, you'll know that the substance can cause significant and enduring personality change.

You're advancing a pseudoscientific theory, and I'm ripping it on its utter lack of merit. Please don't take that personally.

For the record, the first time LSD was created it was made using lysergic acid derived from ergot, a mold found on rye. It is a semisynthetic drug, and cannot be created without an organic source.

Methamphetamine can be synthesized from the ephedra plant, and a total synthesis of LSD exists.

> really bad ideas do seem like amazing epiphanies if you're under the influence!

Sometimes really bad ideas can actually turn around when taken to irrational extremes. Tons of evidence in history of people who are batshit crazy, somehow figuring out something amazing simply by being impossibly committed to something really, really stupid. But of course, being batshit crazy has other problems, and nearly all of the really stupid stuff does not turn around like that.

Most things can be presented as nodes and edges. It is why graph theory is powerful.

Spider webs and auto traffic also have a relationship in this sense but that doesn't say much about the relationship of cars and spiders.

Maybe you need to read less bullshit from McKenna. He was a con artist, not even a good one at that.

No, this is the platform to post on. You hacked something neat together and posted about it. I really liked how you made it agent first and gave it an MCP server so you can give any agent a tmux like multiplexer to use as subagents.

So many times I see projects here I don’t really need, but I always learn something from their readme and code. A lot of time I learn something I can apply to my project. In this case, I use Node-PTY for my terminal control plane but when I run more than 50 agents, it crashes. Maybe using your pty will let me run more agents.

Thank you for your kind words, that's generally how I see other's projects too.

I haven't performance or load tested, it's on the backlog; so I'd be curious on whether this works for your use-case. And if not, feel free to log an issue!

Wild so many creators are pouring their life’s work into these platforms instead of their personal website

Have tens of millions of engaged fans or just tens? Difficult choice.

Heard of POSSE? They could post on their websites and syndicate elsewhere. That way, I can access their content thru their website or RSS since I don’t have an Instagram.

LLMs are equalizing this. They use curl and Instagram has dark patterns to stop this. So if you ask a question in a specific niche, LLMs will prefer and refer to users who have their own website.

It’s the same reason popular YouTubers move to Patreon and Nebula once they get established. You never want to solely depend on a platform that can demonetize, or in this situation, take your handle.

Muse might’ve just sold it to them, TBH. I don’t see FB stripping them of it outright. This is not a small band afterall.

I'm old enough to remember when bands did everything on their own sites, complete with message boards. I _really_ miss that. Twitter is just a middle-man nobody wants when you're talking about artists.

If you're a band, your life's work is the music. The platform is just a communication channel.

Their website can provide the backbone for concerts, merch, DTC tix maybe? I’m sure the fans that are not on these platforms would appreciate.

...but they do? I don't really see what your point is.

https://www.muse.mu/

I get what you're saying, but the vast majority of people aren't going to bother going to someone's random website. I think the best you can do in this day and age is put your eggs into as many different baskets as possible, a personal website being included in that. That way, you can maximize eyes on your work and one platform suddenly losing popularity or going to crap doesn't ruin you.

I and others I know would. Granted we're not the vast majority, but my feeling is that people don't do it nowadays because they've been trained not to. If bands went back to their own sites, I'd say people would follow.

Muse released their 4th platinum album before Twitter was even founded. They poured their life's work into Twitter? That is ridiculous.

You’re right. I was more pointing to artists and creators after Muse that would have it a lot worse if they got their handle taken.

network effect.

Interoperability that POSSE and ATPROTO provide will free us from the network effect. You know what saves us from the network effect? Interoperability.

it's in big tech's advantage to not be interoperable. So we must push legislation to mandate it.

It really isn’t. No one is going to some randos website. Notice how this conversation is here instead of on Engadget itself, comments powered by openweb

Did you just call the band Muse "some rando"? Ummm, you may want to poke your head out of whatever hole you reside in. :)

There’s been a lot of devs reaching for StyleX over Tailwind recently. Not sure if hype or there’s real advantages.

When these LLM companies were pirating content to train and it wasn’t punished at all, I knew the rules don’t apply to them.

But don’t worry bud, instead of the authorities going after actual corporations admitting to actual crimes, we’ll just ban CloudFlare IP addresses for everyone during La Liga games to battle piracy.

And require real ID to do almost anything on the internet "unintentionally" enriching their data sets by tying what you asked/where working on to you specifically as a person.