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One potential model I'm mildly optimistic about is a net based on cryptocurrency microtransactions, such as the Coinhive proof of concept [1]. Who knows how (or

• morpheos00 9y ago
  In the long run this probably won't work. The way most cryptocurriences work is their supply is limited and the difficulty of mining increases as the amount of computational power allocated to mining grows. In the case of unlimited supply cryptocurrencies you would have an inflationary effect where more and more people try to make money off of users' computational resources generating more and more crypto-tokens reducing the value of a given "unit of mining effort." The Internet is a hyper-competitive marketplace so "profit" trends to zero in the long run. This will also be true of Google and Facebook. In the long run search will be distributed among Internet nodes maybe like a semantic DNS not under the control of a few companies. People will be able to host their social profiles in the search records. But until the long run arrives this approach will be interesting.