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Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

blog.zgp.org

381–390 of 408 posts

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't true in my experience as a party operator at all. You can easily move MAGA to progressive quite simply, do some deep canvassing but you'll find out that there are more agreements that people care about (healthcare costs, housing costs, poor salaries, poor retirement, decaying society) where you can build on top of. Also what you're saying goes against the most effective union advice from people like Jane M…

Those people weren't ideologically against you on housing, healthcare, or poor salaries etc. If they were, you wouldn't be able to convince them. The reason they were easier to move is because of their class position. If you talked to a business owner, they would be against improving many of those things, particularly poor salaries and retirement. Healthcare keeps employees tied to work too. With workers, there isn't…

Once again, I implore you to actually do some political organizing because you're just spouting nothing meaningful in general. Good luck.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this still doesn't matter. Just still waste of time of time caring about what journalists think over activating the local community into your cause. Go read "No Shortcuts" by Jane McAlevey to understand what effective organizing is.

I don't think you're hearing me. You are presuming that one has a cause and that that cause is correct. But where does that presumption come from ? In order to be worth supporting, a cause does actually need to be based in reality. And you can't get that without journalism. Should I join a cause that wants to outlaw popsicle sticks? Raise taxes on birdwatchers? Require owners of unicycles to register them? How does s…

There's no point in hearing you because you're still espousing ineffective things. You do you, I know what works because I've been doing it for 5 years. The people that taught me were doing it effectively for 40 years. It's not complicated or hard, you just have to you know... actually organize with the appropriate power players.

I can see why advocacy is appealing to you though because you aren't sacrificing anything and allows oneself to be lazy rather than effective.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#383
post #270

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Goes like the following: Google/YouTube have a userbase to track accounts for; they go to a bank (licensed money transmitter, with OFAC/KYC/AML programs implemented). Google gets paid by people looking to advertise, and that money goes into Google's master account. Google's finance system translates views/impressions to money movements to creator accounts hosted at other banks (same deal, OFAC/KYC/AML program in plac…

> The hubs keep track of everything to keep the Osama Bin Laden's or Russian Oligarch's, or Cuban nationals out of the U.S. financial system. Yeah I don't think that worked: https://marker.medium.com/how-russian-oligarchs-stow-away-th...

Nope! That's the fun part! All the misery from the downsides, none of the upside! But imagine how much worse it could be! /s

There's a reason I'm doing anything possible to avoid going back into finance. I never developed the knack to just sit back quietly doing stupid things that don't work for the purpose everyone says it's for.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#384
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned above, it's not a micropayment. It's just a payment. You can transact in whatever amounts you want, and backend systems will bump the numbers around just fine, even for fractions of a cent. Hell, that's how interest and currency exchange settle out. The LLM provider runs a meter. The meter tallies your activity, wraps it in a transaction, hands it to the backend, backend talks to other banks/payment gate…

Not too interested in debating the semantics of "micropayment", but it sounds like if we swap in "news sites" in place of "LLM providers" everything should still still be possible? Consumers could pay tiny amounts of money for individual articles?

You already can with traditional finance. The only thing stopping that from being the case is that the news orgs don't want to sell their product that way, and you can't force them to. That's kind of a them thing. They get to dictate their terms, you don't like them, that's fine. Their answer would be you aren't their target demographic. Besides which, do you really want to create an arrangement by which someone sneaking in an XSS driven script will drive your browser to visit their entire catalog, and piping the content to /dev/null or similar, you getting charged for every GET?

The technical possibility is there. The desire to operate the business that way is not. You're a victim of the conspicuously absent feature implementation, and all I can say is... Well... Welcome to the club. Here's your "Fuck MBAs" hat, and an Occupy Wall Street T-Shirt, because the perpetrators inflicting your suffering all pretty much as a whole wear suits.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#385
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... shows me how factual each source is and which way they lean politically. Fact-checkers and whatever you call people that gauge political biases aren't impartial sources of information. Someone pays their bills and those people typically have agendas besides delivering objective truth. I'm not suggesting that paying monthly fees or paywalls are a solution to the problem either. The real solution is to stop readi…

> Fact-checkers and whatever you call people that gauge political biases aren't impartial sources of information. Someone pays their bills and those people typically have agendas besides delivering objective truth. That's meaningless: It's like saying everyone is a liar or everyone is violent, or a potential murderer or everyone's partner is an adulterer. Yes, anyone can, everyone lies, nobody is perfect - but some p…

It's not though? People aren't doing fact-checking out of kindness, they're doing it because they're being paid to do it. The people paying them expect a certain outcome from their fact-checking activities, and objectivity doesn't really factor into the picture, but ensuring a certain narrative prevails, does.

Pretending that a news story is factually correct because someone is getting paid to check it for accuracy is asinine. The fact checkers themselves have biases and aren't objective sources of truth, same with the people supplying their paychecks.

The fact that people have the capacity to lie and be violent, but that not everyone is a liar or a murderer is obvious and doesn't need to be stated.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability for users to access the lightning network is limited by blocksize since you need transactions to open channels.

> you need transactions to open channels Maybe your understanding of lightning is wrong here. Yes you open channels, and transactions in lightning need open channels, but you do NOT NEED to open channels for specific transactions. You open channels once, and transact over them for years. I run a lightning node with more than 15 channels (each to different lightning nodes) that are all older than 1 year (I route payme…

No misunderstanding at all.

Go read what I've said again. My timelines are based entirely on each user making a single transaction(opening a single channel).

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability for users to access the lightning network is limited by blocksize since you need transactions to open channels.

Once channels are open, the users on the lightning network can transact back and forth without any new channel opens/closure and thus no on-chain settlement. Hence: Throughput in lightning is not at all limited on the bitcoin transaction throughput.

Throughput depends on users and users are limited by transaction limits is what I'm saying.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#388
post #3

Micropayments work for games because there is some specific outcome I know I want and know paying this money will move me closer to that goal in the immediate future. That isn't the case for news content. In news it's "reading this might be interesting" or being generous "knowing this might improve my life at some point". That delay in outcome will kill micropayments because it again goes from a very easy calculation…

absolutely, the problem of the cognitive friction of having to decide what to pay for compounds massively when there uncertainty about the purchase, and the negative experience when the user feels that he or she has been essentially scammed because the purchased product is not what was expected far outweighs positive experiences that are perceived at best as just the expected transaction

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's OFAC, for one. In the U.S. alphabet soup, that's the Office of Foreign Asset Control, and they maintain the master sanctions list operated by the Federal government. This is a list, that as a matter of law, must be checked against every transaction. If there is a match on the receiving end of funds to a sanctioned individual, the transaction is immediately halted. If a sanctioned party is the originator…

Thanks. As someone who has lived in 3 countries (2 as an adult) and is considering leaving the US again.. Any hints on how NOT to end up on that list? I.e. avoid large transfers? What's the best way to transfer some $$ out of the US? I have no red flags in my background other than some speeding tickets 10+ years ago and have dual citizenship. How far does this extend? I read the ICC judge had her credit cards cancele…

Don't want to end up on the Sanctioned Entity List? Avoid anything that might make you controversial to a Federal Bureaucrat, and never do business with or on behalf of anyone already on the list. That's pretty much the only criteria to get on it. It's considered to be under the auspices of "Foreign Policy" so is under the sole discretion of the Federal Executive.

A few years ago, I'd tell you if it's a NATO ally, odds are at some point they are wired into OFAC. The choice is, do business with the American financial system, or get added to the sanctioned. There's a reason why I said the American Financial system is wired for soft power projection. We were big and trustworthy enough where just going along with it to maintain access to things made the act of checking a list that thusfar, no one had too many objections to the people who ended up getting added to it was just a no brainer.

Then... an ICC judge got sanctioned, finally making apparent how the U.S. really intended the mechanism to be used; as an "our way, or the highway" sort of thing. So I'm far from able to make any informed guesses on who is still honoring the commitment or not. The Cheeto-in-Chief has done a marvelous job at encouraging everyone to reassess the longevity or reliability of Pax Americana, sooo...

As for how to move assets out? If you aren't on the list, just move em somewhere else. Just not to anywhere on the list. If you are on the list, kiss your assets custodially held goodbye til the ole' U.S. of A decides to take you off the list, which at a minimum is probably going to require some very uncomfortable chats with people you don't want to be alone with.

Again, there is a reason I left. There is a reason I have no desire to return, and why I've basically opted to live life extra hard mode, because I can't just accept that it's okay for the Government to orchestrate financial lockout; and even less reason why we should all be gungho to implement systems like that. Canada has one, I'm pretty sure Great Britain and most of Europe each probably maintain their own as well. You'd have to check. I understand why a country would seek to have one, and operate one. I just can't consciably be involved in it. The abuse potential of the capability is too damn high. "Good guys in office who wouldn't be stupid enough to abuse such a thing" cannot be said to be a given. I wasn't comfortable with the Orange Man sitting on the nuclear football, nor am I comfortable with him on OFAC or anything else his position now entitles him too.

If I sound like a paranoid nutter, I sympathize, sounds pretty fantastic right? I once thought the same thing about a guy who used to work for the Postal Service who tried to tell me that "Oh, hell no, USPS will absolutely open main in transit for a myriad of reasons. At the time, I took it with a grain of salt. Now... I realize he was absolutely telling the truth. If it's a network, we (the U.S.) will do everything in our power to maintain the ability to tap, manipulate, and control it. I just want help machines move bits from A to B man. Not be a cog in sovereign theft/freezing of assets of the politically/diplomatically inconvenient/disfavored. Violates the Moral Imperative.

Here's the lists btw. Enjoy.

https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/

Was really the first time in my life I started looking at and appreciating databases as the weapons they are.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the US example that would be several years in the absolute best for lightning case to onboard even 5% of individuals. Lightning is doomed from the start. And if you don't care about self custody then the overhead of using a blockchain is a waste.

It is not black/white. It is okay to have the freedom to become self-custodial anytime, but not everybody needs to transact in self-custody all the time. Taproot was another major step that enables lightning upgrades in future versions (such as zero-fee channel opens) that is barely discussed. The number of X years for onboarding Y amount of people is not accurate, as it disregards all major developments of the last…

You need enough users for providers to bother making it an option to pay with so it really is black and white. You might get a few niche providers offering it as a payment method without a critical mass of users but most companies aren't going to invest time and effort into implementing a payment system a tiny percentage of users have access too and if I need to trade money with my friends the low % means that in the vast majority of cases they aren't going to have lightning available either.
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