For context: The Pirate Bay is now launching a javascript-based Monero miner in all visitors' browsers to mine coins for them in the background (possibly as an alternative to ads).
As long as there is disclosure of it and the mining is relatively efficient, that is a very interesting business model. The site collects revenue relative to the amount of time users spend on the site and not the number of page/ad views. It is also a pretty seamless way to integrate micropayments from users into a site. Handing over a credit card number or similar is a big barrier to overcome while this requires no s…
As long as that's the case, maybe (and even then I don't think it would be) but as it is now, what entity ensures that sites actually use the mining as payment and not simply make you pay the whole time?
How would you negotiate prices if your customers are not even aware how much they are paying?
Wait, people are actually doing this? Using client-side resources not to deliver content or applications to clients, or even to visibly deliver things like advertisements, but to divert user CPU cycles for their own purposes? I want to know more about this. Are they seeking any kind of consent from the users, or even disclosing it to the users? If not, I have serious doubts about the legality of this behavior.
The Pirate Bay just tested that yesterday, apparently. They bundled a Monero javascript miner with some of their pages. The funny thing is that while the legality of that is questionable enough for the more reputable websites not to go down that road, TPB is already shady enough to pull it off - and their users don't really have anyone to complain to. It's worth noting that this isn't exactly a new idea - some MIT st…
I'm intrigued. Do you know what the startup was called?
Today I read that The Pirate Bay tested this new form of monetization (running a miner in you browser). I thought that might solve website monetization finally. We still have to figure out stuff like battery draining on mobile but it is the first step and I can buy some Monero which is well suited for JS/CPU mining (or in other words, it doesn't have a huge upside when mined on GPUs). And what do I see here? That bef…
I'd rather pay with my wallet than with my battery. And I'll pay only what I buy. Lock me out if I don't pay, or tell me to GTFO, and I'm totally fine with it, but you can't pick my hypotethical-pocket because I opened up your page. This is like charging window-shoppers. And like a sibling comment says, if this catches on, most web sites will do both, i.e. ads + client-side mining. One nice day publishing industry wi…
> rather pay with my wallet
I'm going to throw my solution in the ring for HN's consideration - https://Datajoy.us/fupm.html: lets make paying for content so simple that both you and the domain owner can happily set it up and let it do its thing behind the scenes as you surf the web.
Right now, it is being trialed for blogs and other top level domain content providers. First payments will be made Oct 1st.
I'd rather pay with my wallet than with my battery. And I'll pay only what I buy. Lock me out if I don't pay, or tell me to GTFO, and I'm totally fine with it, but you can't pick my hypotethical-pocket because I opened up your page. This is like charging window-shoppers. And like a sibling comment says, if this catches on, most web sites will do both, i.e. ads + client-side mining. One nice day publishing industry wi…
I'd argue that ads already pick your pocket just for window shopping the page. There's no such thing as Adblock for video streams on Twitch anymore; the ads are burned into the stream, so you can't block them. (Hopefully YouTube won't switch to the same tech.) Is that picking your pocket just for watching a video steam? If not, why is a video steam materially different from consuming a website?
Ad money comes from a third party, not me. Whereas with this coinhive thing, I'm paying with my computational power and my battery (which is the most important thing here). Traditional internet ads increase resource consumption too, which is part of why we block them. Ads that are part of a video are different, you can skip them, and they cant breach your privacy (I dont know what Twitch are doing, though).
God, would you shut up? Jesus, sorry to burst your bubble but people are running their damn CPUs no matter what I do. I heard that some people would prefer client-side mining to ads and I thought I might give that option for those that want it. But I guess that'll cause the Apocalypse next Friday so I'll just go host my application at online.com™ for the low low price of $9 a month, since it's just a card game and ca…
Nope. If you post your idea on a public forum I will be responding with my opinion. Feel free to stop posting if you don't want my replies. I'm also genuinely curious what kind of card game has such intensive server requirements because I just don't see it. Maybe you have a legitimate need to contribute to global warming, it just seems unlikely to me.
I'm sure it's entirely possible that I can run my application within the arbitrary limitations that you have set for me. I have a MongoDB and Express stack primarily. Sorry that I didn't know that online.com™ can host my application with 8 gigs of RAM for just $9 a month. I came into this damn thread wondering if maybe someone thought this was a good idea from the point of view of user experience. I don't care whatsoever about the planet. Not a bit. If my computer brings about the next Ice Age, fine. I'm a webdev, I saw an idea I liked, you ruthlessly shot me down because apparently it's going to harm you in some way. Honestly, I'd like to make a little money to pay my student loans off with, but that's not about to happen. So maybe, just maybe, I don't care how wonderfully cheap and capable the server you just randomly decided I should use is. I saw a cool idea, I wanted to implement it in an open and honest way for those users that wanted it. Sorry for destroying the planet with curiosity.
Today I read that The Pirate Bay tested this new form of monetization (running a miner in you browser). I thought that might solve website monetization finally. We still have to figure out stuff like battery draining on mobile but it is the first step and I can buy some Monero which is well suited for JS/CPU mining (or in other words, it doesn't have a huge upside when mined on GPUs). And what do I see here? That bef…
"Solution" wow, just step back a second here, I never signed up for advertisements AT ALL, much less background CPU miners for shady schemes.
Solution is the last word to use, there is no problem first off and malware is not how you would solve this fantasy of a "problem".
OTOH I'm ok with ads, but not ok with miners. So wouldn't make sense have an ad blocker that doesn't block ads. People seems allergic to browser extensions this days. I also get the "why is this an extension and not a filter?" on a non ad-related extension.
Things is, all the funcionality to block certain content has already been created and tested (at length) in uBlock Origin. Using a different addon for exactly the same purpose but for different content is the worst kind of separation of concerns.
Browser APIs to block content are fairly simple. There's no reason to use a huge piece of software if you just want to block some urls.
Ad blockers have their own issues, including trust about maintainers intentions.
I'd argue that ads already pick your pocket just for window shopping the page. There's no such thing as Adblock for video streams on Twitch anymore; the ads are burned into the stream, so you can't block them. (Hopefully YouTube won't switch to the same tech.) Is that picking your pocket just for watching a video steam? If not, why is a video steam materially different from consuming a website?
Ad money comes from a third party, not me. Whereas with this coinhive thing, I'm paying with my computational power and my battery (which is the most important thing here). Traditional internet ads increase resource consumption too, which is part of why we block them. Ads that are part of a video are different, you can skip them, and they cant breach your privacy (I dont know what Twitch are doing, though).
(You can't skip them, sadly. The video won't buffer until the ad has fully buffered, which happens in real time.)
OTOH I'm ok with ads, but not ok with miners. So wouldn't make sense have an ad blocker that doesn't block ads. People seems allergic to browser extensions this days. I also get the "why is this an extension and not a filter?" on a non ad-related extension.
There is no ad blockers There are blockers which can use lists, some of those lists might contain ad domains, some of those lists might contain miner domains.