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I have privacy concerns with this type of service, especially if it catches up. I don't want a third party to know what i m reading. Besides i think this kind o

by return0 11y ago

I have privacy concerns with this type of service, especially if it catches up. I don't want a third party to know what i m reading. Besides i think this kind of service would be best implemented at the browser level. An insert-bitcoin-to-read button would be a great experiment worth giving a try in firefox.

guftagu 11y ago
Check out the Brave browser
- return0 11y ago
  Does brave have webmasters in mind? Preemptively blocking ads without an alternative revenue stream is obnoxious.
mrweasel 11y ago
It can't really be Bitcoin, because the value isn't sufficiently stable, there has to be some credit card option. Given that a $0.20 credit card transaction doesn't make financial sense, you need someone to handle micro-payments, and who's that going to be? PayPal? We've been needing a micro payment standard since 2000, and one has yet to materialize.
- ThomasRooney 11y ago
  > It can't really be Bitcoin, because the value isn't sufficiently stable, there has to be some credit card option. Perhaps not using purely bitcoin, but using it as a medium of exchange still makes sense with a volatile currency. As long as bitcoin is converted to/from a fiat currency within a short time period the risk of value fluctuations is pretty low. This is the approach that coinetize (https://www.coinetize.com/ https://www.coinetize.com/) seems to be taking. They take bitcoin (among other payment methods), and convert it into credits which are valued at fractions of a dollar, and pay out bitcoin to the journalist when these credits are spent to access a page. The transactional cost for bitcoin is too large to make 1:1 btc micro payments work right now.
  - Retric 11y ago
    Each of those transactions costs money. In the end Bitcoin can't do 25c transactions at any real scale. You have some token* backed up by bitcoin, but at that point you might as well just use Money. You could even pretend the tokens where bitcoins, but individual 25c transactions are not going to show up on the block chain. PS: Dogecoin can handle ~10x as many transactions as bitcoin so it might work better for this. But, even then you can't have millions of people doing several transactions per day.
    - DennisP 11y ago
      If Bitcoin ever gets Lightning implemented, this could be a good use for it. Something similar already works as an Ethereum contract [0]; EtherAPIs is using it for micropayments on API calls over HTTP. [1] [0] https://github.com/obscuren/whisper-payment-channel https://github.com/obscuren/whisper-payment-channel [1] https://etherapis.io/ https://etherapis.io/
- return0 11y ago
  It's pretty stable for the short time it takes for the payment transaction. It's crucial for having a certain level of anonymity. Besides, i can imagine there should be wallets that keep your money in USD or euro, and convert to bitcoin only when needed (edit: someone mentioned it: BitPay).
  - mrweasel 11y ago
    Okay, but at that point why would you need Bitcoin? Now Bitcoin is just a protocol, with no consumer protection.
    - return0 11y ago
      for limited anonymity
- ryan-c 11y ago
  It says they're starting the account out with $2.50. I assume they'll bill in chunks when that is depleted.
- lazyjones 11y ago
  > We've been needing a micro payment standard since 2000, and one has yet to materialize. Apple, Google, Steam, Sony (PS4 store) and others all have micro-transactions solved for their purposes (with credit cards, prepaid options and user "wallets"). So this isn't likely to really be an obstacle for Blendle.
- ultramancool 11y ago
  > It can't really be Bitcoin, because the value isn't sufficiently stable Why does that prevent it? Just exchange it immediately via an automated service (look at BitPay for an example), they take the minute to minute risk for 1% profit and you don't have to worry about it.
  - mrweasel 11y ago
    >Why does that prevent it? Because I would need to buy my Bitcoin in "bulk" and the publishers would need to set their price in USD, EUR, GBP or whatever, in order to be able to do proper financial planning. Given that Bitcoin is as stable as say the USD, someone is going to win or lose money on the conversion between "real" currencies and Bitcoin. I won't be risking money becoming worth less, and neither are the publisher. I don't know BitPay, but I don't assume that they the risk of devaluation of my Bitcoin for weeks or months. We're not talking about buying just the amount of Bitcoins I need for one article, say 20 cent, because fees attached to the credit card transaction your will want to buy at least a little more. Agreeable there is a point to be made in the fact that the price of each article is so low that you would only need to buy something like $5 worth of Bitcoin, and at that point it doesn't really matter if you lose %20. Still I don't feel like Bitcoin is the right option, but maybe it could be the backend to a micro payment system. I just don't want to deal with the Bitcoins or conversion to my local currency.
    - ska 11y ago
      Given that Bitcoin is as stable as say the USD That's a pretty, ah, strong "given".
  - ska 11y ago
    Can you get the transaction cost to be approx 1 cent, and the latency approx 1s or less? If not, it's pretty hopeless for this application. [edit] it's only the user experienced latency that needs to be that low, of course. And you might be able to get away with 10s. But not 100.
- dave2000 11y ago
  They exist but there's no single place like a PayPal or a Google wallet. Until then a service which consolidates them so you have to only make 1 sensible payment per month might be a workaround.
konschubert 11y ago
Maybe a browser plugin that makes an instant micropayment when you load the article? Of course after after obtaining your permission? I tried to define a spec for something like this: https://konstantinschubert.github.io/pennytoken-spec/ https://konstantinschubert.github.io/pennytoken-spec/
ball_of_lint 11y ago
If you would be willing to trust blendle, they could group your payments and do something like a monthly bill per customer and per journal.
gpvos 11y ago
402 Payment required. https://http.cat/402 https://http.cat/402 The HTTP status code has been there since 1994, but no-one has implemented it yet...

by return0 11y ago

guftagu 11y ago

Check out the Brave browser

return0 11y ago
Does brave have webmasters in mind? Preemptively blocking ads without an alternative revenue stream is obnoxious.

mrweasel 11y ago

It can't really be Bitcoin, because the value isn't sufficiently stable, there has to be some credit card option. Given that a $0.20 credit card transaction doesn't make financial sense, you need someone to handle micro-payments, and who's that going to be? PayPal? We've been needing a micro payment standard since 2000, and one has yet to materialize.

ThomasRooney 11y ago
> It can't really be Bitcoin, because the value isn't sufficiently stable, there has to be some credit card option. Perhaps not using purely bitcoin, but using it as a medium of exchange still makes sense with a volatile currency. As long as bitcoin is converted to/from a fiat currency within a short time period the risk of value fluctuations is pretty low. This is the approach that coinetize (https://www.coinetize.com/ https://www.coinetize.com/) seems to be taking. They take bitcoin (among other payment methods), and convert it into credits which are valued at fractions of a dollar, and pay out bitcoin to the journalist when these credits are spent to access a page. The transactional cost for bitcoin is too large to make 1:1 btc micro payments work right now.
- Retric 11y ago
  Each of those transactions costs money. In the end Bitcoin can't do 25c transactions at any real scale. You have some token* backed up by bitcoin, but at that point you might as well just use Money. You could even pretend the tokens where bitcoins, but individual 25c transactions are not going to show up on the block chain. PS: Dogecoin can handle ~10x as many transactions as bitcoin so it might work better for this. But, even then you can't have millions of people doing several transactions per day.
  - DennisP 11y ago
    If Bitcoin ever gets Lightning implemented, this could be a good use for it. Something similar already works as an Ethereum contract [0]; EtherAPIs is using it for micropayments on API calls over HTTP. [1] [0] https://github.com/obscuren/whisper-payment-channel https://github.com/obscuren/whisper-payment-channel [1] https://etherapis.io/ https://etherapis.io/
return0 11y ago
It's pretty stable for the short time it takes for the payment transaction. It's crucial for having a certain level of anonymity. Besides, i can imagine there should be wallets that keep your money in USD or euro, and convert to bitcoin only when needed (edit: someone mentioned it: BitPay).
- mrweasel 11y ago
  Okay, but at that point why would you need Bitcoin? Now Bitcoin is just a protocol, with no consumer protection.
  - return0 11y ago
    for limited anonymity
ryan-c 11y ago
It says they're starting the account out with $2.50. I assume they'll bill in chunks when that is depleted.
lazyjones 11y ago
> We've been needing a micro payment standard since 2000, and one has yet to materialize. Apple, Google, Steam, Sony (PS4 store) and others all have micro-transactions solved for their purposes (with credit cards, prepaid options and user "wallets"). So this isn't likely to really be an obstacle for Blendle.
ultramancool 11y ago
> It can't really be Bitcoin, because the value isn't sufficiently stable Why does that prevent it? Just exchange it immediately via an automated service (look at BitPay for an example), they take the minute to minute risk for 1% profit and you don't have to worry about it.
- mrweasel 11y ago
  >Why does that prevent it? Because I would need to buy my Bitcoin in "bulk" and the publishers would need to set their price in USD, EUR, GBP or whatever, in order to be able to do proper financial planning. Given that Bitcoin is as stable as say the USD, someone is going to win or lose money on the conversion between "real" currencies and Bitcoin. I won't be risking money becoming worth less, and neither are the publisher. I don't know BitPay, but I don't assume that they the risk of devaluation of my Bitcoin for weeks or months. We're not talking about buying just the amount of Bitcoins I need for one article, say 20 cent, because fees attached to the credit card transaction your will want to buy at least a little more. Agreeable there is a point to be made in the fact that the price of each article is so low that you would only need to buy something like $5 worth of Bitcoin, and at that point it doesn't really matter if you lose %20. Still I don't feel like Bitcoin is the right option, but maybe it could be the backend to a micro payment system. I just don't want to deal with the Bitcoins or conversion to my local currency.
  - ska 11y ago
    Given that Bitcoin is as stable as say the USD That's a pretty, ah, strong "given".
- ska 11y ago
  Can you get the transaction cost to be approx 1 cent, and the latency approx 1s or less? If not, it's pretty hopeless for this application. [edit] it's only the user experienced latency that needs to be that low, of course. And you might be able to get away with 10s. But not 100.
dave2000 11y ago
They exist but there's no single place like a PayPal or a Google wallet. Until then a service which consolidates them so you have to only make 1 sensible payment per month might be a workaround.

konschubert 11y ago

Maybe a browser plugin that makes an instant micropayment when you load the article? Of course after after obtaining your permission? I tried to define a spec for something like this: https://konstantinschubert.github.io/pennytoken-spec/ https://konstantinschubert.github.io/pennytoken-spec/

ball_of_lint 11y ago

If you would be willing to trust blendle, they could group your payments and do something like a monthly bill per customer and per journal.

gpvos 11y ago

402 Payment required. https://http.cat/402 https://http.cat/402 The HTTP status code has been there since 1994, but no-one has implemented it yet...