The more industrial activity and investment I see in “payments” and ecommerce, is to me a signal of a hollow society that has ceased creating real value. We have more to contribute than materialism, skimming off of electronic transactions, entertainment etc.
Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
41–50 of 116 posts
Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#42I feel like the word "protocol", is just abused like it is a glorified marketing term. Kind of like how the word "hacker" was abused in everything else that had nothing to do with hacking. MCP was just a glorified way of tool calling but generated so much hype (and it eventually died down). Now we have MPP. Which again - could have just been another tool call exposed to the agent. Imagine you hire someone who claimed…
I think this started when "web3" cryptocurrency projects started using the term to pretend that something which isn't much more than a service that uses a blockchain network to move money around was actually somehow "decentralized" and that that made it more trustworthy.
Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#43Fascinating — this is the future of decentralized finance. Agents will be the entities that both earn and consume.
"Decentralized" seems like a stretch for something developed and promoted by monolithic payment processors.
Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#44Jokes about wallet-draining aside, we're already giving our agents a real cash budget that they use for tokens. Our harnesses have mechanisms to manage that spend. And having an easily detectable protocol would allow the harness to ensure that its deterministic code is in play to make these payments - you'd give your payment details to the harness, not to the agent itself. And as to use cases, if I want quality outpu…
> we're already giving our agents a real cash budget that they use for tokens. I read this line and my (poor little) brain ran in a whole other direction for a moment. Because AI token management and "parental controls" aren't that far separated functionally. How far are we from the AI companies selling token packs like video games sell premium currency? Buy NOW, 1.99 for 10,000 Anthropic gold...
Last thing I heard: stock options are so last year, AI companies award ... tokens now. Can't find the source now, sorry!
Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#45I feel like the word "protocol", is just abused like it is a glorified marketing term. Kind of like how the word "hacker" was abused in everything else that had nothing to do with hacking. MCP was just a glorified way of tool calling but generated so much hype (and it eventually died down). Now we have MPP. Which again - could have just been another tool call exposed to the agent. Imagine you hire someone who claimed…
The good ol' folks at Stripe's collaborators Tempo Labs tried to make an RFC-style description page for MPP: https://paymentauth.org/ (full doc on IETF draft page: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ryan-httpauth-payment... ) I almost was going to point it out as evidence there was thought put into it. Nope, it's flimsy and AI generated. Also, it contains provisions for scamming customers: > 403 indicates the pay…
This one is even worse IMO
> Servers MAY return 402 when:
> * Offering optional paid features or premium content
This implies that a successful GET request to a resource that user already does have access to, might still return 402 instead of 200. This makes 402 basically unworkable.
Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#46I fail to see how "API call" is anything inherent to Agents/LLMs? Is this an attempt to get multiple payment processors to adopt the same Payments API so that agents fail less often?
It has nothing to do with Agents/LLMs which is why it's not called "Agentic Payment Protocol." It's an API for making purchases instead of interacting with a website of unknown flow.
The text literally starts with:
> We believe agents will become an integral part of the internet economy, and they need the ability to transact with businesses and one another.
> MPP provides a specification for agents and services to coordinate payments programmatically, enabling microtransactions, recurring payments, and more.Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#47[dead]
Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has nothing to do with Agents/LLMs which is why it's not called "Agentic Payment Protocol." It's an API for making purchases instead of interacting with a website of unknown flow.
The text literally starts with: > We believe agents will become an integral part of the internet economy, and they need the ability to transact with businesses and one another. > MPP provides a specification for agents and services to coordinate payments programmatically, enabling microtransactions, recurring payments, and more.
Obviously agents are the big thing right now, but that doesn't change the fact that MPP is an automation solution
Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#49"Creates a direct connection between your wallet and our bank account!"
Note the absence of invoices, bills of lading, and receipts, all the things you need when a vendor doesn't deliver. All it does is send money, one-way. So it's useless in a B2B context.
Re: Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The good ol' folks at Stripe's collaborators Tempo Labs tried to make an RFC-style description page for MPP: https://paymentauth.org/ (full doc on IETF draft page: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ryan-httpauth-payment... ) I almost was going to point it out as evidence there was thought put into it. Nope, it's flimsy and AI generated. Also, it contains provisions for scamming customers: > 403 indicates the pay…
This one is even worse IMO > Servers MAY return 402 when: > * Offering optional paid features or premium content This implies that a successful GET request to a resource that user already does have access to, might still return 402 instead of 200. This makes 402 basically unworkable.
An RFC is a request for comments, contributions.
Are you open to contributing to this RFC?