211–220 of 269 posts
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There's one model that guarantees income: the subscription model.
Only if you can guarantee that someone subscribes.
Wait, people are actually doing this? Using client-side resources not to deliver content or applications to clients, or even to visibly deliver things like advertisements, but to divert user CPU cycles for their own purposes? I want to know more about this. Are they seeking any kind of consent from the users, or even disclosing it to the users? If not, I have serious doubts about the legality of this behavior.
Pirate Bay trialed this but otherwise nobody is doing this at scale right now. The problem is that users will notice and the ROI is miniscule. Even if your users keep the miner running 24/7 you're nowhere near just regular old ads.
I'd love to explore this idea in a more reasonable, less-sketchy, opt-in way, but I'm only just getting started with crypto and I'm not sure what factors go into estimating potential costs/returns yet.
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Pirate Bay trialed this but otherwise nobody is doing this at scale right now. The problem is that users will notice and the ROI is miniscule. Even if your users keep the miner running 24/7 you're nowhere near just regular old ads.
Not arguing with you, but I've seen a lot of people say this has very minimal ROI without giving any numbers. Do you happen to have any to share? Are you considering a higher relative investment based on an inconvenience to the user? I'd love to explore this idea in a more reasonable, less-sketchy, opt-in way, but I'm only just getting started with crypto and I'm not sure what factors go into estimating potential cos…
(In the thread for the original Show HN for the code behind this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15246145 )
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PirateBay probably won't make any money. I'm considering adding this to an online game, which would probably generate a modest income. Video and social media sites could definitely benefit as well.
What game is that? I want to be sure to avoid it if you are planning such scummy tactics.
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Ugh...no. The carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies is already borderline-unconscionable, and that's with purpose-built hardware that achieves efficiency beyond what consumer-grade equipment can. Moving mining onto consumer hardware and implementing it in JavaScript is a huge step backwards.
The idea that mining is a waste is a bit strange to me - of course it is a waste, that is the genius insight of it all. Waste is the most powerful thing, it is pure cost, the hardest thing to do, raw sacrifice. There are no tricks or shortcuts to over-taking the blockchain, just pure cost and waste. If the proof-of-work had value and could be sold, it would make the network less safe, and less predictable, subject to…
Any idiot can come up with the idea of competitively burning electricity to secure a source of truth. But it ignores what happens in x years time.
There is no efficiency that can ever be gained. It's a chart of value and lost energy forever extending up and to the right.
I personally don't care about the energy usage as long as the page still runs smoothly (and if I want to block the mining I think that's my/my browser's responsibility, serves me right for having JS on by default) but I object to the manipulation that advertisements constitute, and the power advertisers get to strong-arm media platforms to censor, case in point: YouTube.
I assume these "protesters" have a vested interest in the advertisement model, either because it's their business model, or because they are aligned with groups that benefit from the control over users and platforms that the ad model provides. Why else are they shilling for ads?
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Two quibbles I have with this argument: 1. PoW based on waste which has massive negative externalities is abusive. Power generation generally has large negative externalities. Bitcoin kills. 2. PoS is just another type of PoW - people will compete to earn the PoS rewards up until they are "burning" 0.99 worth of potential ETH they could have earned (with stocks or bonds for example) for every 1 ETH they earn through…
Typo, I believe: switching to PoS is a capital-creating act, not PoW! PoW is disgusting.
Can anyone explain to me like I'm a five year old why would anyone need to block coin miners on their browser and why they would be mining there in the first place?
- A website author can include a script for their _users_ to mine coins for the website author, which effectively distributes work across many machines you don't own.
- This means, instead of mining on just your own machine, you're effectively mining across N machines (however many users you have) as long as they have your website open (at a ~60% efficiency rate according to other comments).
- This is great for the website author, as it's very little effort on their behalf for a small profit, and affects each individual user less than the whole.
Why someone would want to block coin miners:
- Mining is very CPU intensive, which can slow down the browser for users.
- Increased CPU usage can also lead to higher electricity bills
- Increased CPU usage can also lead to lower battery life
- Someone might also not want to benefit the owner of a website they're visiting, especially if it's at any cost to them (electricity bills, battery, cpu, etc)
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The idea that mining is a waste is a bit strange to me - of course it is a waste, that is the genius insight of it all. Waste is the most powerful thing, it is pure cost, the hardest thing to do, raw sacrifice. There are no tricks or shortcuts to over-taking the blockchain, just pure cost and waste. If the proof-of-work had value and could be sold, it would make the network less safe, and less predictable, subject to…
It's not genius it's worse is better. Any idiot can come up with the idea of competitively burning electricity to secure a source of truth. But it ignores what happens in x years time. There is no efficiency that can ever be gained. It's a chart of value and lost energy forever extending up and to the right.
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Sorry, no, you can't burn my CPU cycles and drain my battery for money. Full stop, end of story, thanks for playing, etc, etc. I still own my computer, and I couldn't care less about your innovative new business model. Just, no.
Yeah but you're not entitled to use their server's resources for free. If you're not okay with them running a miner while you use their site, don't use their site. I'm okay with this approach as long as they are transparent about it.
If you want to put restrictions on how your site is meant to be used, use appropriate protocol means. Like, respond with 402, or simply don't serve content until I pay you / agree to display ads / agree to run your cryptocoin miners / whatever.
Ads, and sneaky cryptocoin mining scripts, are underhand attempts at having a cake and eating it too. Because they know people don't like to pay, they choose to pretend they're free, while at the same time bleeding the visitors for small amounts of indirect money (in attention => time, or computing resources => electricity).