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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?

#171

Post by lippispoika »

temp0826 wrote: post #45

Tangential but I've never seen a http 402 error (payment required), and I sort of wish it would be implemented somewhere.

Several years ago the team I was on worked on a custom app for Splunk. We were on a customer call where they were receiving HTTP 402 Payment Required in their error logs and thought it was coming from our app. We explained we never implemented that error code (although I got paranoid and did triple check our code) so the conclusion was that Splunk must be returning it. Even searching the web today, it appears they never documented that but there are several Splunk community forum threads asking about HTTP 402. If you do use it, it's probably best to clearly document exactly what you want your users to pay for, and how!

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#173

Post by solardev »

lostmsu wrote: post #152
solardev wrote: post #136

Contrarian opinion: As a regular consumer, I don't WANT a decentralized, anonymous currency. For users like me, crypto totally misses the point. I don't want digital cash that can't be traced. I'm not buying drugs or illegal shit. I want a centralized , safe way of sending small amounts of money to some content producers, microtransactions, etc., but with basic banking guarantees. Like being able to charge back a tra…

IMHO, you don't quite understand what you are talking about. Your centralized requirement is entirely bogus. If participants wish so, they could use any of the cryptos to run a subnet with an external oracle/moderator. Or even just build moderation right into smart contracts.

Why? I don't want a bunch of small operators independently moderating, or hope for a bug free implementation of a smart contract. The whole point is regulatory instead of technical protection. I don't want code to supercede the laws that exist to protect us.

I especially don't want my finances under the care of the kinds of companies and opportunistic individuals normally drawn to crypto. One mistake and everything is gone. That's only a plus if you're a cyber libertarian. I would much sooner trust a reputable brand or government.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#174

Post by paxys »

The problem with web payments isn't the lack of a standard API, it's everything that happens under the hood. As a developer it makes no difference to me whether the browser natively supports a payments interface or I add it in via one line of JavaScript. Now tell me how to deal with credit card fees, sales tax, direct debit, crypto transfer and a million other jurisdiction-dependent payment mechanisms and rules. Does the standard account for the fact that in India every online credit card payment requires a one-time code sent via SMS? Or that every bank has its own online payments interface? Or that UPI is now a thing? The folks publishing the Web Monetization spec sure aren't thinking about any of this.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#175

Post by EricMausler »

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'm working on something under a different use case that could fit for this, but maybe not at the scale people on this forum are looking for without additional support

I wont blab about myself here, but I do feel I have relevant background and a couple solid connections to implement something that works.

Cryptocurrency has failings for my use-case, based on what I've tried for designing around it so far. For strictly donating money in one direction towards a website, those failings may not be relevant though.

Sadly this project is not my day job, though, but it is something I plan to use for myself with or without more widespread adoption so it's moving forward regardless. I'm honestly only working on it because I wanted to do a different project that would work way nicer if tiny transactions with users are possible.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#176

Post by kelnos »

didntcheck wrote: post #134
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.) It could, but we've now seen the absolute vitriol levelled at sites who dare to ask for a bit of money in return for content, and the lengths people will go to to avoid paying then make up some excuse to justify it. It's funny how a common excuse for ad blocking used to be "I'd pay for content if there was an option", y…

I think it's a little more nuanced than that. I would be fine paying per-article on a lot of news sites, if the cost was on the order of single-digit cents.

I consume most of my news via aggregators like HN, so I have no loyalty to any particular news site. I'm not going to pay $30/mo for a subscription when I read maybe 5-10 articles on a site per month, at most. And I'm certainly not going to pay for subscriptions to, say, the 15-20 different news sites that show up with that frequency on aggregators, with headlines I'm likely to click on.

Put another way, let's say I read 10 articles per day, so about 300 per month. Those articles are spread across a lot of different sites, let's say probably 100 of them, ranging from single article from random blogs, up to 7 articles from a larger publication like WaPo or WSJ.

At even 10 cents per article, on average, that's $30/mo, total. I'm comfortable with that. In contrast, with the current "system", if I had to subscribe to even 15 of those medium to large publications, at, say, $15/mo, that's $225/mo, which I'm absolutely not comfortable with. At that point -- assuming there were no ways to bypass paywalls -- I'd simply just do without, and find other free sources covering the same stories.

But still, I don't think micropayments will work, even if the friction is pretty low. There is a surprisingly huge psychological gulf between free and even one cent. Once you ask someone for money, they are going to agonize (even if just a little bit) over whether or not the article they're about to read is actually worth it.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#177

Post by madeofpalk »

frutiger wrote: post #7
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…

> Are there any promising avenues towards microtransactions that gets around small card transactions getting a hefty fee This is anathema here in the US but the rest of the world typically does not use credit cards as the default payment method.

Mastercard/Visa are not only credit cards - they're used for debit card transactions as well.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#178

Post by kelnos »

emmo wrote: post #111
ertian wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it has to be lightweight. The thing that would drive prices down and keep ads at bay is competition. Since setting up a new streaming service is difficult-bordering-on-impossible, the players are protected from competition and can squeeze their customers. In other markets, if you had a lightweight payment system that isn't just a component of a walled garden (ala Medium or YouTube), you could see actual co…

Sorry, slightly tangential, but haven't we seen streaming services get progressively worse as more competition has entered the space? Netflix was great when they were pretty much the only place in town; now it's a fragmented disaster of services that have to squeeze harder and harder to keep things viable.

Agreed. But I think the solution to this is compulsory content licensing, not consolidation. Granted, the end result of that might still be consolidation (or many players just going out of business), but at least that would be true competition: the streaming services would be competing as streaming services (and would be judged on price, video quality, app/website stability and usability, reliability, recommendations, etc.), not as content producers.

Re: What happened with the Web Monetization API?

#180

Post by thrwwycbr »

paxys wrote: post #174

The problem with web payments isn't the lack of a standard API, it's everything that happens under the hood. As a developer it makes no difference to me whether the browser natively supports a payments interface or I add it in via one line of JavaScript. Now tell me how to deal with credit card fees, sales tax, direct debit, crypto transfer and a million other jurisdiction-dependent payment mechanisms and rules. Does…

The core issues with the Web Monetization API is that all the things you mentioned get dangerously close to SAP and Salesforce waters, and there's a reason these systems are the definition of bloated legacy accounting tech.
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