If you are going to argue that who people should trust should be determined in a decentralized way then I would say scammers would manipulate this and exclude who is trustworthy and include fellow scammers. There are a large number of scammers who have excluded me from their trust network while they have added their alts and fellow scammers to their trust network. The fact that scammers outweigh honest people (especially when it comes to the number of accounts) means that any voting system will result in scammers appearing as trustworthy and honest people appearing as scammers.
+1
Any decentralized trust system will eventually be taken over by scammers.They have more to gain that we do. I don't get paid in any way for what I do here. But you can bet there are rooms full of Chinese hackers that are making a pretty penny scamming ignorant new users.
I'm on the same page with you on this. This is the reason decentralized exchanges and marketplaces will most likely be unsuccessful.
But, DefaultTrust has also been tricked in a gross way. FriedCat has stolen probably more than what DefaultTrust has ever saved and he is still standing at +150 !!!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=49840Proof that the default trust list can't prevent anything. The default trust only serves to give new users a false sense of security and causes them to let down their guard with higher rated users. Trust ratings should be an INDICATOR of some one's trust, not the be all end all. Right now it is designed to be all and end all. It should be more like a footnote, because no matter what the system will be gamed. The best way we can stop scamming is to teach individuals to be vigilant, not put blinders on them, tell them everything is ok, and let them loose.