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How do I pay the publisher of a web page?

sethmlarson.dev

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

#81

Post by csumtin »

sneak wrote: post #34

This is a relatively straightforward problem to solve. There is a “payment required” HTTP status code and lightning network micropayments are very easy to set up and use. The problem is that payments that cannot be centrally surveilled and centrally vetoed (without burden of proof of probable cause, usually) are actually illegal to implement. To do anything like this requires strong ID and KYC for payer and recipient…

I think another problem with micropayments is competing with free is hard. Say you have the best lightning paywall with an amazing UX where it's super easy and automatic to pay a creator a few sats. Most people assume the problem is user's don't want to pay but it's actually publishers who won't put up micropayments on their content. Here's why: for a big publisher, adding a lightning paywall is a big risk which may lose them their audience. For small publisher's, they don't care if 10 people send 10 sats, all they care about is becoming a big publisher

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

#82

Post by nkrisc »

quaintdev wrote: post #16
nkrisc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who pays for that service?

The browser vendors can earn small commission from each transaction. This ensures steady stream of income for them as well. They have created a piece of public infrastructure that is absolutely critical they should earn from direct payments of their users instead of relying on single entity who may or may not have their best interest at heart.

So if this became popular enough, then in a sense browser makers would be gatekeeping who’s allowed to receive payments. Website owners could of course still show ads or independently earn money other ways, but wouldn’t browser makers then be incentivized to tailor the browser experience to favor sites that earn them a commission?

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

#83

Post by michaelt »

klntsky wrote: post #77
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…

Have you seen the fees on ethereum L2s? Your opinion may be slightly outdated, I wouldn't consider a single digit number of cents a large fee

I buy a magazine where $3 gets you 114 short articles, each about 1/3rd of a page. So I'm paying 2.6¢ per article, if I read every single one.

Some people dream of 'micropayments' at a similar price point. Being able to buy a single article for about 2.6¢.

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

#84

Post by ghaff »

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…

There were probably some useful concepts and possibilities in the blockchain space but they became so intermixed with the crypto-scum that the whole area became toxic.

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

#85

Post by ghaff »

michaelt wrote: post #83
klntsky wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the fees on ethereum L2s? Your opinion may be slightly outdated, I wouldn't consider a single digit number of cents a large fee

I buy a magazine where $3 gets you 114 short articles, each about 1/3rd of a page. So I'm paying 2.6¢ per article, if I read every single one. Some people dream of 'micropayments' at a similar price point. Being able to buy a single article for about 2.6¢.

And that's probably around the price point that people mean by micropayments. It's not $1 per article. And that's probably an exhausting amount of mental transaction costs as Clay Shirky observed ages ago and probably not a sustainable revenue stream for producers.

For consumers, a subscription model seems to fit the bill for most people but some media are apparently better suited than others.

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

#86

Post by knorker »

m01 wrote: post #65
rmccue wrote: post #6

> I have money and I have a URL, how do I send money to the publisher of that URL? This question could easily be “I have money and I have a person’s name and address, how do I send money to them?” The only way to do this consistently would be to mail them physical cash, since there’s no way to consistently send money electronically across the world (and you’d have a currency conversion problem too - if someone mailed…

> “I have money and I have a person’s name and address, how do I send money to them?” Send a cheque?

I got a cheque for $5 once. It would have cost about $40 to cash it.

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

#87

Post by knorker »

csumtin wrote: post #81
sneak wrote: post #34

This is a relatively straightforward problem to solve. There is a “payment required” HTTP status code and lightning network micropayments are very easy to set up and use. The problem is that payments that cannot be centrally surveilled and centrally vetoed (without burden of proof of probable cause, usually) are actually illegal to implement. To do anything like this requires strong ID and KYC for payer and recipient…

I think another problem with micropayments is competing with free is hard. Say you have the best lightning paywall with an amazing UX where it's super easy and automatic to pay a creator a few sats. Most people assume the problem is user's don't want to pay but it's actually publishers who won't put up micropayments on their content. Here's why: for a big publisher, adding a lightning paywall is a big risk which may…

> it's actually publishers who won't put up micropayments on their content

Won't, or can't?

Do you have a good article about how to set up a paywall or tip jar for small transactions, with a clear description of what percentage goes to middlemen and (mainly in the case of proof of work) how much externality cost it incurs?

I would like to be able to pay $cents or even $dollar for instant access to an article, but only if X% actually goes to the recipient (I don't know what X is, yet), and I would lead by example on my own content. (though most likely tip jar, not paywall)

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

#88

Post by dangus »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #3

Some people don't want to be paid. They do things as a hobby and for fun. As soon as one is being paid there is a ned to publish more and good quality stuff, which turns a fun project into work.

This also means that the people who want to be paid will tell you exactly how on their page. E.g., all the “buy me a coffee” links you can find on open source projects.

The author of this article wants a special HTML meta property but we’ve already that solved: plain text and hyperlinks.

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

#89

Post by ghaff »

ghaff wrote: post #84
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…

There were probably some useful concepts and possibilities in the blockchain space but they became so intermixed with the crypto-scum that the whole area became toxic.

And one effect of that is that the energy/investment level of legit promoters of blockchain has gone down while other promoters have stayed the same or increased.

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

#90

Post by daveguy »

klntsky wrote: post #77
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…

Have you seen the fees on ethereum L2s? Your opinion may be slightly outdated, I wouldn't consider a single digit number of cents a large fee

Single digit cents is not a large fee, but blockchain fees are dynamic. And the more traffic, the more expensive. I would not appreciate if that 2.6 cents suddenly became $2.60. Also the maximum number of transactions for Bitcoin (not sure etherium) is about 10/s. Processors like Visa and MasterCard process thousands of transactions per second. And if every article read is another transaction that would need at least 1-2 orders of magnitude more transactions. The way I see it, blockchain is a broken model for micro payments. If I am missing something, please let me know.
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