Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

foundation.mozilla.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 277 posts

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#221

Post by mcv »

Here's an idea that just came to me. Feel free to shoot holes in it. It's based on my assumption that users do prefer things without ads, and might want to pay for it.

So how about a search engine where, if you pay for it, it ranks sites without ads at the top. And if you click a link to an ad-less site, that site gets some of the money you paid to the search engine.

Maybe combine it with a social network that works a similar way, though that's harder to do because you don't control what people share.

The major downside is that there would be a central place (the search engine) where the money gets distributed. It would be better to have something non-centralised. Still, I might use a search engine like that.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#223

Post by fhennig »

snthd wrote: post #64
FreeHugs wrote: post #3

It's crazy, that we still do not have something like "Cash" on the internet. A simple, anonymous way to pay 10 cent or so. To use a website or read an article. That would make the world so much better for indie developers. Currently, an indie dev makes orders of magnitude less money per pageview then Google, Facebook and Co. Because those have all that advertising technology and ecosystem that indie devs don't have.…

GNU Taler is a WIP for that. https://taler.net

Very interesting, thanks for posting.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#224

Post by AndrewKemendo »

cameronbrown wrote: post #192
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Like I said, it's pervasive to the extent that we just assume it's the only way it could be, but it's behind every terrible thing. I know this first hand, I built these systems. The end state is to know and predict everything you do, and then sell you something about it. Whether its a product or an experience or a feeling. That's where it all leads - you lose your agency. Getting rid of online marketing or n…

I've worked with small businesses - the small one to thirty person plummer or photographer or decorator type. What you're asking for is fundamentally impossible. Business and entrepreneurship is a human process where two entities find a transaction that benefits them both. Of course this breaks down when shady actors manipulate in bad faith, but that's the price of freedom. To put a ban into place as extensive as you…

You're just reinforcing the point that we're in too deep for it to be a comfortable transition.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#225

Post by jamesrcole »

205guy wrote: post #86
FreeHugs wrote: post #3

It's crazy, that we still do not have something like "Cash" on the internet. A simple, anonymous way to pay 10 cent or so. To use a website or read an article. That would make the world so much better for indie developers. Currently, an indie dev makes orders of magnitude less money per pageview then Google, Facebook and Co. Because those have all that advertising technology and ecosystem that indie devs don't have.…

My idea was just to have this integrated into your ISP bill. I once thought that ISPs should pay for all content, then pass the bill onto users + costs-and-profit. I guess there would need to be separate standardized rates for video, audio, and text, but that creates a ton of regulatory and technical issues. Not the least of which is people don't want to pay. It would be like music licensing essentially, and look how…

Say there are three people living together in a share house/unit, all sharing the one internet connection. There'd have to be a way to deal with cases like this.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#226

Post by jamesrcole »

mcv wrote: post #221

Here's an idea that just came to me. Feel free to shoot holes in it. It's based on my assumption that users do prefer things without ads, and might want to pay for it. So how about a search engine where, if you pay for it, it ranks sites without ads at the top. And if you click a link to an ad-less site, that site gets some of the money you paid to the search engine. Maybe combine it with a social network that works…

A major question, for me, is: how does it get started? What would motivate someone to create a website without ads, for the purposes of what you're suggesting, when the scheme is in its infancy? What would motivate a website to remove ads, when the scheme is in its infancy?

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#227

Post by bloopernova »

noxer wrote: post #198
bloopernova wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know anything about Monero. How does it compare to Stellar, which was recently on HN due to the Keybase airdrop giveaway? (I hold a whole $40USD in Stellar, I do however think it's a good thing. But I think there's space on the net for more than a couple of cryptocurrencies so I'm curious about Monero)

Forget Monero it can't scale for micro payment. Currently it does like 1 Tx every few seconds. We can assume it could handle a few Tx per seconds. And with proper hardware upgrade it could probably handle some dozen Tx per second. Anyway all of that is far far away for usable if people want to do micro payments to websites they read. Stellar is way faster the XRPL even more so (1500Tx/s) but even then it can not be u…

Thank you for the information. There's obviously a lot more I need to understand regarding crypto, but you helped :)

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#228

Post by olah_1 »

frogpelt wrote: post #122

I wonder if a Spotify for the Internet would work. Pay a monthly access fee and have micro payments go to the creators based on usage. Mozilla would be in a good position to introduce that type of service and track consumption.

> Pay a monthly access fee and have micro payments go to the creators based on usage.

That's exactly how Brave Browser works.

Re: 100 million dollars to reshape the economics of the web

#229

Post by julien »

r-w wrote: post #161
julien wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://unlock-protocol.com ;) [disclaimer: I made this!]

This is really interesting! I was fascinated by the website, joined the Telegram group… and of course got kicked for not sending a message in 60 seconds. Is there any chance I could email you my username and be re-added?

Sorry, our anti spam bot is wayyy too agressive. We removed it. Please join again (or email me julien@unlock-protocol.com). Thanks!
Post reply on HN