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

What happened with the Web Monetization API?

chriscoyier.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 271 posts

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#41

Post by EGreg »

carlosjobim wrote: post #36
PretzelPirate wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're now making a different argument: it's unethical for an ad blocker to have their own ads? Why is that? I don't like ads on websites because they track me, slow down loading times, use my data, etc... So I'd like to block them because they're forced on me in the modern web. This ad blocker gives me control of whether I want to see any ads, how often I want to see them, and takes measures to prevent tracking. Tha…

You are not seeing any downside because you are only thinking about yourself. Somebody made the website that you are visiting and enjoying. They spent time, effort, and maybe some money to make it. And they get paid by ads to keep access free. Now, I know hackers will come screaming about how their human rights are violated by seeing an ad on a webpage. Okay, block the ads then. But for a business to block the ads of…

Just out of curiosity, why are so many people on HN who are against crypto-based payment systems and decentralized networks (always using shibboleths like “scam” and “ponzi”) at the same time so totally for the equally “ponzi” model of advertisers supporting free sites via giant centralized brokers? Most advertisers quickly find out that the ad money is wasted and only the slickest and most misleading campaigns win, same as the meme tokens. Clicks and visits can be astroturfed same as fake volume of crypto.

But what makes the ad supported model far worse than crypto is the dystopian centralized control, system of incentives and Surveillance Capitalism that always grows up around it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#42

Post by michaelt »

TillE wrote: post #10
AndrewStephens wrote: post #8

The problems with monetization and micropayments are not technical and no easy-to-use API is going to help with adoption. Dealing with money is a real pain due to fraud, security, and legal compliance and those problems don't go away when the amounts are small.

Even those are solvable problems, the real issue is social. There's a reason Flattr failed and Patreon has been a huge success. People would rather personally support a handful of creators at $5/month than put the equivalent money in a tip jar at a bunch of faceless websites.

> Even those are solvable problems,

Are they?

Historically, there have been a lot of people eager to erect barriers to make payments difficult for those who want to gamble, sell porn, buy porn, donate to controversial political causes, avoid taxes, sell drugs, buy drugs, etc etc

So a system that lets me send $40/month of untraceable cash to strangers on the internet might face a lot of opposition.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#43

Post by kerkeslager »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #32
carlosjobim wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The browser has a built in ad blocker, effectively removing the ads that pay for a website. To then put your own ads _anywhere_ after that and pretend that you're helping website owners is a scam. Imagine if YouTube started blocking sponsored content and put their own ads there.

You're now making a different argument: it's unethical for an ad blocker to have their own ads? Why is that? I don't like ads on websites because they track me, slow down loading times, use my data, etc... So I'd like to block them because they're forced on me in the modern web. This ad blocker gives me control of whether I want to see any ads, how often I want to see them, and takes measures to prevent tracking. Tha…

> You're now making a different argument: it's unethical for an ad blocker to have their own ads?

This is a straw man. It's not unethical, it's nonsensical. If you serve ads you aren't an ad blocker, you're an advertiser.

> This ad blocker gives me control of whether I want to see any ads, how often I want to see them, and takes measures to prevent tracking.

Pretty much every ad blocker gives you control of whether you want to see any ads, and how often. Whitelists exist that allow some ads, they just don't get much use because outside of the out-of-touch HN bubble, very few people actually want to see any ads.

The difference is that other ad blockers are obviously more trustworthy because they aren't also in bed with advertisers.

> I can even choose to not block ads that aren't trying to exploit me.

More nonsense. "Trying to exploit you" is literally the purpose of advertising.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#44

Post by kerkeslager »

EGreg wrote: post #41
carlosjobim wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not seeing any downside because you are only thinking about yourself. Somebody made the website that you are visiting and enjoying. They spent time, effort, and maybe some money to make it. And they get paid by ads to keep access free. Now, I know hackers will come screaming about how their human rights are violated by seeing an ad on a webpage. Okay, block the ads then. But for a business to block the ads of…

Just out of curiosity, why are so many people on HN who are against crypto-based payment systems and decentralized networks (always using shibboleths like “scam” and “ponzi”) at the same time so totally for the equally “ponzi” model of advertisers supporting free sites via giant centralized brokers? Most advertisers quickly find out that the ad money is wasted and only the slickest and most misleading campaigns win,…

A lot of HN works in industries which benefit from advertising. It's motivated reasoning.

In general, HN users can be trusted to take the side of corporations over humans in the vast majority of situations.

EDIT: Downvoting without giving reasoning just lends further credence to my point that their views are based in selfishness rather than reasoning. ;)

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#46

Post by pelorat »

seanwilson wrote: post #5

> It needs to be built into the browsers and web standards such that it’s incredibly smooth and fast. I wanna send $1 to a website, it happens instantly and anonymously, and the developer can do things around this. Like unlock features! For instance, stop showing ads, offer more complete downloads, unlock tutorial courses, etc. Make it easier and faster than using a credit card. Are there any promising avenues toward…

Good luck getting something like that past Eu regulators.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#47

Post by pelorat »

teitoklien wrote: post #37
nerdo wrote: post #34

What if money gets sent to websites that host hate speech?

Why do you think anyone reserves the right to block funding to what gov determines as “hate speech”. If someone wants to pay for hate speech they can anyways do it right now with donations. Ideas like this quickly devolves into gov marking any message that criticizes them as “Hate speech”. Democracies like Japan, to an extent Singapore do that already, officially by law. Nations like Canada, India, Israel, Hungary, d…

Unfettered speech can lead to a cult following which, as we here in Europe know very well, can be extremely fucking dangerous. Which is precisely why some speech will land you in prison.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#49

Post by captn3m0 »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #12
sofixa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are there any promising avenues towards microtransactions that gets around small card transactions getting a hefty fee One option is to have regulations about card fees, which is the case in the EU (0.2% for debit, 0.3% for credit). Another is to use an alternative payment method, like India's UPI or Eurozone's SEPA which are free and instantaneous.

The UX around card and SEPA payments sucks, though. I hear UPI is nicer.

But the UPI requirements of forcing mobile apps makes the monetisation usecase UX pretty terrible (think App Intents to and fro on mobile browsers) and scanning QRs on desktop.

I’d rather like Taler.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#50

Post by indigochill »

stevekemp wrote: post #21
internetter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, this is probably just going to manifest as a digital currency. Add 10$ to your wallet. At the end of the month that's distributed or something

Flattr tried to do something similar, but yes I agree. It's unfortunate that bitcoin became a hoarding/speculation thing, rather than a useful thing. Decentralized micro-transactions would have been cool had they been used with a decent friendly UI and been integrated into a browser or two as an extension.

My understanding (possibly mistaken - I've only been casually watching from the sidelines) is bitcoin (and at least most other blockchain currencies) suffers a similar problem to credit/debit cards, in that there is effort involved in validating/recording the transaction and that work needs to be compensated, and therefore there are transaction fees that are effectively independent of the value transferred, therefore microtransactions are disproportionately penalized by this necessity.

Especially with KYC/AML laws being necessary to run a legitimate financial exchange, there really is no getting around a certain cost-per-transaction and even in a best-case scenario that hits microtransactions "equally" as hard as "macrotransactions" which proportionally penalizes microtransactions.

To minimize the proportion of that going to transaction fees, you're better off making fewer transactions which then manifests as something like a monthly subscription instead of "I'll just transact ten cents to you per action".

Post reply on HN