---
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.