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+---
+slug: participants
+title: 'Participants: Customer, Merchant, Operator'
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- commerce
+---
+
+Every commerce interaction involves Humans in distinct roles — the Customer, the Merchant, and the Operator who runs the platform — and the power between them is unequal. This RFC defines these roles as Humans-in-role (a legal entity such as an LLC is not a Human but is controlled by one), and names the power asymmetry plainly: the Operator holds deploy, data, and float power over everyone else. Naming that asymmetry is what lets later RFCs constrain it; the concept serves Agency and Dignity.
+