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What happened with the Web Monetization API?

chriscoyier.net

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Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#61

Post by yreg »

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…

Yes, to me this combination is pretty unethical. Similarly, I don't mind piracy, but I find it distasteful to pay for pirated content.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#62

Post by carlosjobim »

svieira wrote: post #29
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.

Brave removes unsolicited advertisements and trackers. That is a feature of the browser and is effectively the same as shipping older versions of Chrome with a bundled version of µblockOrigin. Separately (probably not in "planning how to make Brave a profitable company", but definitely so in feature scope) IFF the user opts-in to seeing Brave's ads then they get paid (in a crypto-token that represents a unit of "Atte…

If a browser blocks the website owner's ads and put their own ads instead, then they are leeching on the work of other people and also profitting from it.

There is a saying "You can't fool an honest man", and it holds true for this situation as well. If the browser would just block legitimate ads and put their own ads and take all the money themselves, then hackers would riot. But since they say they are sharing the profits with users, many people will turn a blind eye to such unethical behaviour. Because people are base.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#64

Post by SleepilyLimping »

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.

>It's unfortunate that bitcoin became a hoarding/speculation thing, rather than a useful thing.

Brave tried to do this with their Basic Attention Token, but they seem to be focused on adding generalized crypto features like wallets rather than developing how it could work better.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#65

Post by efitz »

A paid web could eliminate the ad ecosystem and all its toxicity (surveillance technology, etc.)

I don't see any solution that was based on customer goodwill ("that was cool, here's $1") as something that there is much demand for.

What we need is a browser-mitigated micropayment ecosystem. Maybe browser vendors could come up with a standard where you can "charge up" your account like a prepaid phone card, and then when you browse to a URL you get the option of an ad-ful experience like today or a micropayment option, e.g. "nytimes.com requires a subscription or a $0.50 payment to view this page OK/Cancel". Micropayments would avoid the fee overload of the credit card companies and your browser could display your balance in the toolbar. The server could be provided with a cryptographically signed receipt and there could be a periodic reconciliation.

Note that there is no need for the complexity of a blockchain anywhere in this; IMO a blockchain just complexifies the solution and turns off people who don't trust cryptocurrencies.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#66

Post by pdubouilh »

coddle-hark wrote: post #51
pdubouilh wrote: post #6

On the non-crypto web-monetization side, I'm toying with a non-profit idea in the same vein but using third party tooling (browser extension, etc...) website: https://lagom.org whitepaper: https://lagom.org/docs/lagom-whitepaper.pdf

Beautifully designed website! I still don’t know how it’s supposed to work though, the whitepaper has zero implementation details in it.

Thanks :) It's a basic centralised idea - I'm working on a second version of the whitepaper to be more pragmatic with defining the solution, the current one is just conceptual.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#67

Post by armchairhacker »

soco wrote: post #23
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…

I had for a while Coil installed in the browser and nobody cared about it, so I uninstalled it half a year later. I honestly couldn't care less if there's a blockchain behind it or whatever, but as long no sites (useful to me) implement it... Under the line I paid Coil some money for nothing, so maybe for them it was a business success.

I had Coil too. They shut down.

https://www.coil.com/#:~:text=On%20March%2015%2C%202023%2C%2....

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#68

Post by imiric »

internetter wrote: post #14
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…

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

Agreed. Brave actually implemented this exact thing[1], and then got dumped together with other crypto scam projects, which continues to happen in this very thread.

Crypto haters are quick to shout that cryptocurrencies have no practical use, and introduce many problems, but this is a perfect use case for them. The negative discussion has detracted from some truly disrupting technologies being adopted, which is a damn shame.

Brave Inc. has made some missteps, sure, but I don't think they're overall an evil or scam company. A solution like BAT can eventually move us away from the current ad-infested web where advertising leeches serve as sleazy middlemen between users and companies, and scams and fake content flood the web in order to trick SEO and get easy ad revenue. The modern web is a minefield corrupted by advertising, and things will only get worse as AI generated content gets widespread adoption.

If browsers integrated with a decentralized wallet, that can either be filled by watching privacy-preserving ads OR by manually adding credit to them, had Humble Bundle-like sliders for users to control how much of their credit is allocated for each site, and the web had standardized APIs for websites to set their minimum price, then it would solve the monetization issue once and for all. The basic customer-business relationship would be preserved, where customers actually pay for the services they use, instead of the corrupt business models of today where web users are not even the customers, but a piece of rock gold can be mined from, and its value milked in perpetuity.

I think the single largest reason this hasn't happened yet is because it would negatively impact the profits of adtech giants who are running the web, and have a strong sway in directing its future. If any solution has a chance in getting mass adoption it needs to happen outside of the web, and be built from the ground up by avoiding the mistakes we now know have lead us to where we currently are.

[1]: https://basicattentiontoken.org/

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#70

Post by bakugo »

efitz wrote: post #65

A paid web could eliminate the ad ecosystem and all its toxicity (surveillance technology, etc.) I don't see any solution that was based on customer goodwill ("that was cool, here's $1") as something that there is much demand for. What we need is a browser-mitigated micropayment ecosystem. Maybe browser vendors could come up with a standard where you can "charge up" your account like a prepaid phone card, and then wh…

> A paid web could eliminate the ad ecosystem and all its toxicity (surveillance technology, etc.)

I don't know how anyone can still live under this delusion when we're currently seeing multiple paid streaming services putting ads on their paid plans that were advertised as ad-free.

Corporations will never be happy with the profit they're making. If they can make you pay AND show you ads, they will.

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