Growth will be slow. This is something like xmpp or mastodon, people will use it for sure, it will grow over time, but you're not going to see an explosion of use like amazon did. Keep at it, your work is much needed and this system you're building is wonderful.
Don't concern yourself with monetization too much. I know you need to eat, HN is populated largely by people in startups (because it's run by a sv startup accelerator) and you'll have a lot of replies asking you how you'll monetize and giving you advice on that. Don't do anything too hasty, don't break what you're building by being short sighted. You can run storefronts as a service to people who don't want to, that's in your back pocket (or front pocket, I don't know your plans), so changing the open dynamic of this thing is not necessary and it would end the whole value proposition of what you're building.
I don't know if you are familiar with OpenBazaar, if you aren't take a look at it and see if you can get any ideas from it, or even if you think what you're building could improve on it. I think it's cool but lacking and I think what you're putting together could actually be widely useable.
Growth will be slow. This is something like xmpp or mastodon, people will use it for sure, it will grow over time, but you're not going to see an explosion of use like amazon did. Keep at it, your work is much needed and this system you're building is wonderful.
Don't concern yourself with monetization too much. I know you need to eat, HN is populated largely by people in startups (because it's run by a sv startup accelerator) and you'll have a lot of replies asking you how you'll monetize and giving you advice on that. Don't do anything too hasty, don't break what you're building by being short sighted. You can run storefronts as a service to people who don't want to, that's in your back pocket (or front pocket, I don't know your plans), so changing the open dynamic of this thing is not necessary and it would end the whole value proposition of what you're building.
I don't know if you are familiar with OpenBazaar, if you aren't take a look at it and see if you can get any ideas from it, or even if you think what you're building could improve on it. I think it's cool but lacking and I think what you're putting together could actually be widely useable.