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

How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

sethmlarson.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 146 posts

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#101

Post by AlienRobot »

jasode wrote: post #19
elashri wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is sad reality. As an example, I wish Sabine Hossenfelder didn't have to leave academia. Her content (blog posts not videos) were one of the ways I kept up with development in theoretical physics. But now that she is a full time video content creator, she is under pressure to publish click bait and very questionable content. I understand that she is catering to the audience but this is one example why alignment…

>, I wish Sabine Hossenfelder didn't have to leave academia. [...] I understand that she is catering to the audience but this is one example why alignment of the incentives works. Before, she was earning her living as a working physicist so she did not have to cater to anyone actually But this obscures the fact that she was still "catering to the audience" when working in academia as a paid physicist. She was just pl…

Personally, I don't mind that "content creator" is a thing, but what irks me is that, at least in the Youtube I see, "content creator" is the ONLY thing.

If I search for ANYTHING, I get a tutorial, or tips, or some clickbait like "I had no idea about this!" Every video is by someone whose job is Youtube. The giveaway is that all of them have custom thumbnails. Someone who just made a random video about something and posted on the free video platform wouldn't even have bothered getting a custom thumbnail for it. You can't find those videos, at all. At this point it wouldn't surprise me if a custom thumbnails was a requirement for the algorithm to consider your video even if it isn't spelled out anywhere.

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#102

Post by alan »

paxys wrote: post #32

The open web is a platform for freeloaders. Since day 1 the expectation is that whatever is accessible will be free. And whatever isn't will be made free by whatever means necessary. Web content creators/publishers don't bother with micropayments infrastructure because no one is going to pay. Ads are a proven business model and they are going to stay. There are other platforms where micropayments have in fact been so…

7 years ago I tried to start a project to allow customers to pay through the ad networks. IE rather than seeing ads, you'd see something saying how much you were providing to the web page owner. I've so far been unable to actually build it though.

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#103

Post by try_the_bass »

montenegrohugo wrote: post #40

Honestly this is one of the main usecases of crypto, in my opinion. And it's only in 2024 where the transaction costs are cheap enough that it's worth it. Still, fragmentation of crypto makes the whole experience shitty - but we've been working on this to fix that: https://docs.peanut.to/checkout-api

Crypto's obsession with public blockchains and the requisite fees to make this work prevent this from being a viable solution.

Those transaction costs you're talking about are still a couple orders of magnitude (or more!) too high for this to be a viable solution for these kinds of micro payments.

This doesn't even get into the necessary transaction throughput that's still it's own unsolved problem

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#104

Post by shark_laser »

grues-dinner wrote: post #33

This is the one thing that I actually thought cryptocurrency would help - getting small adhoc payments out from under the bootheel of Mastercard and Visa, and especially for international transfers that cross between, say, the MC/Visa duopoly regions into other ones like the Asian ecosystems. But instead it's slow, inconsistent, inconvenient, balkanised, dripping with scams, criminals and bad actors and still involve…

Check out Lightning Network, Nostr, and Zaps.

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#105

Post by stavros »

lmm wrote: post #99
edward wrote: post #80

It's worth noting that Ted Nelson's visionary Xanadu project had actually addressed this issue decades ago. In the original design of Project Xanadu, rule 9 states "Every document can contain a royalty mechanism at any desired degree of granularity to ensure payment on any portion accessed, including virtual copies ('transclusions') of all or part of the document." This suggests a foresighted approach to content mone…

> It's worth noting that Ted Nelson's visionary Xanadu project had actually addressed this issue decades ago. In the original design of Project Xanadu, rule 9 states "Every document can contain a royalty mechanism at any desired degree of granularity to ensure payment on any portion accessed, including virtual copies ('transclusions') of all or part of the document." It's easy to address every possible issue when you…

Yeah, wow. Saying that someone addressed the issue by writing "documents can contain a royalty mechanism" is like saying Jules Verne addressed the issue of manned spaceflight.

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#106

Post by 6510 »

This week someone finally vandalized an old long forgotten sign at the train station. It's purpose was to ask the traveler not to walk on the rails. It said because of delays 30 000 people were late for their appointment every year. It attempted to appeal to a kind of decency and care for others that just doesn't exist anymore. It is also true that no one walks on the rails anymore.

The answer to the riddle, how to pay the publisher: You make your own website and write your own article(s) If the reward worthy publisher wrote something that fits the context of your website (or one of them) and it is worth reading for your readers you make a link to it. etc An endorsement like that, from the right person, is worth a lot but it is not required. You just make a nice article for other people, they could do the same. We all win or lose together.

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#107

Post by rchaud »

quaintdev wrote: post #14

Browsers should have pay/tip button to support website owners. And browser vendors should handle the payment. This would limit ads and tracking as well which aligns with Mozilla goals. Can I pitch this idea to Mozilla somewhere?

Browser companies can't handle payments unless they decide to pivot to becoming a payments company like PayPal.

The API and standards talk in the article is putting the cart before the horse. There is currently no way to send money peer-to-peer without an intermediary that can handle the bank transfer, and intermediaries tend to charge a lot for this service.

Because of this, the best options are to add a PayPal or Ko-fi button on the site, with the understanding that the publisher won't be receiving the full amount you send.

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#108

Post by rchaud »

etskinner wrote: post #70
rhplus wrote: post #41

We’re three decades in with the web and it’s pretty clear that voluntary payment nudges don’t work. Most people won’t pay for free content after they’ve consumed it. Humans need an extra incentive to pay for free content. This is why so many sponsorship platforms are effectively subscription models with additional exclusive content or early access. And for that to work, you need more than just a payment button, you n…

I think you're missing a small yet significant portion of people who will pay for content after consuming it. Off the top of my head I've "tipped" after the fact for: An awesome free work time recording app, "free" walking tours when I'm traveling, free online chess, Wikipedia — all after using them.

Most people won't do that though. The walking tour is an example of a situation where there is likely a societal expectation to tip. No such thing on the internet where the publisher is a faceless unknown.

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#109

Post by rchaud »

noman-land wrote: post #18

I know this forum hates crypto but this is very doable with ENS. You can both point to content via an ENS domain and also link to a wallet address. https://ens.domains/ Come to think of it you can do this with normal DNS by just setting a wallet address in a TXT record but that's not integrated into anything. It's just text.

There's a difference between 'doable' and 'viable'.

People want to be paid in cash. Not some internet money that has to go through an exchange to be converted into actual cash. If ENS was so great, people would already be using it.

Re: How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

#110

Post by TeMPOraL »

interactivecode wrote: post #45
grues-dinner wrote: post #33

This is the one thing that I actually thought cryptocurrency would help - getting small adhoc payments out from under the bootheel of Mastercard and Visa, and especially for international transfers that cross between, say, the MC/Visa duopoly regions into other ones like the Asian ecosystems. But instead it's slow, inconsistent, inconvenient, balkanised, dripping with scams, criminals and bad actors and still involve…

Fully agree. We should just settle on a single internet currency thats fast, interoperable and not a market for speculation. Hmm perhaps we don’t need more types of currency? Perhaps it’s better to push deep integration of modern banking changes like psd2, psd3 and others. Across the whole internet. So everyone can just do regular payments with their own bank in a safe and protected way, and hopefully with less inter…

> and not a market for speculation.

That's the bit I don't know how to solve. I have a feeling it may not be solvable in principle, only mitigated if we could get trading on the thing turned into a crime. You'd still have black market trading, but hopefully much more limited in its impact on ordinary use.

Post reply on HN