I've been lurking, observing, watching - hell, sometimes even buying. I've been a part of the "dark net market" scene ever since Silkroad 1 and DPR - oh how good the old days were. I, along with many others have witnessed the rising and fall of markets, we've seen the FBI raids, we've been markets exit scam with tens of millions of dollars, we've seen it all.
As of the last year or so, my observation has led me to believe that the entire market scene as a whole is decreasing very rapidly in terms of quality. I'm seeing vendors create accounts only to resell from other vendors and then exit scam. I'm seeing vendors continue to increase their use of not using tracked services and scamming customers (which btw, "back in the days of SR1" wasn't something anyone would ever really worry about) - we're seeing overall vendor product quality fall and we're seeing prices increase. Vendors are increasing product capacity at the cost of customer service and product quality.
Vendors continue to be greedy, engaging in unethical behavior like feedback forging/padding and scamming customers through selective scamming. It seems that a very popular scam right now (for international buyers) is for the vendor to offer a product, "ship" it using untracked postage (but not actually ever ship it) and then when the buyer complains, the vendor THEN ships the product - the buyer falls into the trap thinking the vendor actually helped them when no such thing actually ever happened.
The increased media coverage and accessibility to markets has also inflicted far more damage to the scene than anyone ever anticipated. We're seeing questions from kids on forums asking if its safe to ship to their dorms! A shift in the DNM scene happened and it's not good. Does anybody else remember the days when it took you half an hour to locate the Silkroad link if you lost it? because I do.
It also seems we have way less vendors who strive to maintain the trust, integrity and quality we all were once so accustomed to - it's quite sad.
Vendors, buyers and market operators this is a message to you; countless people have genuinely put their lives on the line to make this idea of a free, decentralized market the reality we all see today, don't take it for granted - do not let this reality become poisoned by greed or by the very governments who seek to oppress and destroy us.
It all comes back to reputation. This scene cannot survive unless a vendor's reputation is valued as gold. But all the stupid custies want to save a little money by jumping onto whoever the new shiny kid on the block is...