Unfortunately, I only see a way to solve this for fungible goods where you would still need to get every actor involved in the supply chain to upgrade to the same secure tracking solution. It could be done in theory with crypto and tamper-proof packaging, but overcoming the network effect of today's archaic supply chains would be a huge undertaking.
The article points out how sellers are creating unique, non-fungible goods. So how does a customer even initially know that they're discovering 'the original' and not something that has been re-branded? With a Lamborghini, re-naming the car to another brand isn't a problem since the customer won't find it (and a supply chain integrity solution might work.) But how would you solve the Amazon problem?
I suppose you could have a time-locked escrow account where sale funds had to be locked there for N days. That way there would be time to challenge counterfeit sales and re-distribute the funds to the original authors (and / or make customers whole) when fraud was detected. But I am pretty sure people would hate that. Everyone would have to agree to use it for it to work and it wouldn't stop the potential for brand damage from low-quality counterfeits.
If it were a short enough time-lock though, it might work? High enough that it removes the incentive for fraud, low enough that it doesn't frustrate vendors.
The article points out how sellers are creating unique, non-fungible goods. So how does a customer even initially know that they're discovering 'the original' and not something that has been re-branded? With a Lamborghini, re-naming the car to another brand isn't a problem since the customer won't find it (and a supply chain integrity solution might work.) But how would you solve the Amazon problem?
I suppose you could have a time-locked escrow account where sale funds had to be locked there for N days. That way there would be time to challenge counterfeit sales and re-distribute the funds to the original authors (and / or make customers whole) when fraud was detected. But I am pretty sure people would hate that. Everyone would have to agree to use it for it to work and it wouldn't stop the potential for brand damage from low-quality counterfeits.
If it were a short enough time-lock though, it might work? High enough that it removes the incentive for fraud, low enough that it doesn't frustrate vendors.
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