7 ms·

What would be a better solution for ensuring the video's producers continue to receive funding to make more videos?

marlokk 9y ago
ethics
fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
Mining cryptocurrencies while the current tab is in the foreground. (supposing a suitable GPU/ASIC-proof cryptocurrency is available)
- akoncius 9y ago
  sure and drain the whole battery on my smartphone/laptop while I watch that video? thanks but no thanks.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
    The browser could throttle the cc mining based on your battery level/power state. In theory, your device could even mine while charging and then distribute the mined tokens later.
    - Zelizz 9y ago
      Or you could distribute tokens mined from a computer that's plugged in somewhere, or even purchased with normal currency. But I'm not sure I'd want to navigate a web where I'm constantly making purchase decisions with every hyperlink.
      - akoncius 9y ago
        so why bother with additional steps (and cryptocurrency) instead of just pay with real money from the beginning? you are suggesting to introduce just additional unnecessary steps.
        fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
        Some kind of micropayment system would be ok with me, but the nice thing about a system that doesn’t use real money is that it doesn’t factor into my budget in the same way.
        chii 9y ago
        how could it not use real money (i.e, it has no monetary value), and yet be an acceptable form of payment?
    - akoncius 9y ago
      so I could not get access to content if my battery is low and I cannot mine cc ? or would I get access with "credit" so I would need to return "load" later?
      - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
        I’m not sure, I’m just sketching out a solution to content monetization that might solve problems with current monetization schemes.
        akoncius 9y ago
        I understand, I just wanted to show that there are lots of implications and it’s not that easy to solve.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  That's even scummier than most of the ad targeting stuff out there.
- na85 9y ago
  What is with the huge percentage of users here that think this sort of thing is okay?
  - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
    I think it’s ok because I think it’s unreasonable to expect site owners to provide content free of charge: people hate paywalls and ads/tracking because they prevent access to content, add unwanted content and/or infringe on the user’s privacy. An automatic cryptocurrency micropayment system (like the Brave browser’s BAT system, if I understand correctly) could be designed to address some or all of these problems without making it impossible to monetize your content.
    - chii 9y ago
      > people hate paywalls .... An automatic cryptocurrency micropayment system and yet they are willing to expend more electricity, at a huge inefficiency, to produce vastly less monetary value to the site. I would rather just pay the 1cent.
      - zdkl 9y ago
        Yes the inefficiency in mining coins and the hefty fees impact the game theoretic value of this method but it doesn't mean there is no value in that form of compensation. If the choice is between a barren wasteland of providers removing useful content from open access or waiting on 1% of users to subsidise the rest or giving the option to users to pay while they're accessing content, I'll take some form of choice to put my hardware to use for a while if thay eventually pays for hosting and a couple meals to the admin. I think we agree that this does not work at scale but for small operators and some niches, I'm convinced this is a safe option for the siteowner not to have to mess with a payment processor and personnaly identifiable information. This last point especially might become more important with the EU regulations on the horizon.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
- _jal 9y ago
  It is rude to use people's property without asking[1]. I blackholed DNS for two sites who do this. [1] I'd be OK with it if they prominently indicated that, how and why they were being electricity vampires. I still wouldn't use them, but at least it wouldn't be dishonest.
  - emacsgifs 9y ago
    Playing a video without my consent, even if that is an implicit contract (i.e. lead advertising video) to watch content I want, is inherently dishonest. The goal as always is to divert my attention, sell me something of dubious value or some other equally vacuous purpose. If it pays the bills for worthwhile content producers to mine crypto currency as a form of micropayment, I think that's a better trade with lower psychic cost. I have managed to make periods in my life completely free from unwanted content, and they are blissful compared to the never ending attention grabbing bs of the advertising and public relations engines of modern industry. They are simply a waste of people's time and energy. If crypto-mining is done openly, of course. It's certainly dishonest if it's not disclosed.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
    Consider it from the site-owner’s perspective: if I visit someone’s site and if they are using the content on that site as a source of income, isn’t it rude for me to consume that content without paying for it? Ads and tracking have well-known trade-offs cryptocurrency mining have other tradeoffs but, in the end, might end up to be a better option. Also, I’m conceiving of this more as a web API browsers can implement that sites can tap into than as a chunk of JavaScript that a site pushes to its users. So, arguably, you’d have consented to this scheme by installing the browser and enabling the feature.
    - ACow_Adonis 9y ago
      Not if you do the equivalent of hanging a sign on the front door saying "please come in". Which I would argue is the equivalent of what you are doing by putting your content on a communication protocol designed to make it freely available. Indeed, such behavior is reminiscent of one of the oldest tourist scams in the book, no doubt experienced by anyone who has traveled the world in any amount. That is to say, the mark is offered something for free, usually some trivial trinket, or a photo, or something like that. The mark believes it is for free and accepts it. Once the mark has accepted the "free" item, then the scammer changes tune and implies that they should be paid for this exchange, playing on the marks feelings of guilt, obligations and fairness. Apparently this is now a respectable internet business model. Hah!
- FatalBaboon 9y ago
  This is going to be very easy to block: disable processing after page-load, block the most popular cryptomining JS scripts...
chesimov 9y ago
Not to be facetious, but I'd really prefer there to be fewer drawn-out videos of the nature described in the posts above. The issue of payment for content is of course real though.
na85 9y ago
I think the point is we don't want them to continue making videos.
axedwool 9y ago
I don't want people who produce videos like that to continue to make videos. I want them to go out of business.
- macdiddy 9y ago
  That's not really fair. Those people are simply using the current rules to their advantage to help them make a living.
  - zdkl 9y ago
    I don't like this stereotyped answer but isn't this what "move fast and break things" was supposed to be about? Why did we become afraid to diverge from the norm and trends on the internet? From a consumer standpoint, uniformisation makes content parsing easier in the sense that you know what to expect and how to compare content more readily but why do people not go on a limb and take more "risk" in differentiating content? Why don't we have a glorious mess of different formats and the opportunity to choose medium? At some point I believe A/B testing and optimising for reachability put a negative pressure on variation from the norm and platform standards, and that's a tragedy of the commons.
    - Veen 9y ago
      > Why did we become afraid to diverge from the norm and trends on the internet? Because “we” wanted to get rich, or at least make a living.
      - zdkl 9y ago
        Well we can't all make a living as authors or librarians. Ads supported this delusion for a while but historically most people trying to live from their creativity/written work (or modernly, video work) have actually starved to death. If you're in it to get rich or to mke a living exclusively from your art, you better be good enough rather than expecting a sense of duty from your public to subsidise your effort. Not to say one shouldn't be incentivised to be creative, but just that I do not agree that wanting to make a living makes ads or extracting value from your public by all means ok.

ethics

Mining cryptocurrencies while the current tab is in the foreground. (supposing a suitable GPU/ASIC-proof cryptocurrency is available)

akoncius 9y ago
sure and drain the whole battery on my smartphone/laptop while I watch that video? thanks but no thanks.
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
  The browser could throttle the cc mining based on your battery level/power state. In theory, your device could even mine while charging and then distribute the mined tokens later.
  - Zelizz 9y ago
    Or you could distribute tokens mined from a computer that's plugged in somewhere, or even purchased with normal currency. But I'm not sure I'd want to navigate a web where I'm constantly making purchase decisions with every hyperlink.
    - akoncius 9y ago
      so why bother with additional steps (and cryptocurrency) instead of just pay with real money from the beginning? you are suggesting to introduce just additional unnecessary steps.
      - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
        Some kind of micropayment system would be ok with me, but the nice thing about a system that doesn’t use real money is that it doesn’t factor into my budget in the same way.
        chii 9y ago
        how could it not use real money (i.e, it has no monetary value), and yet be an acceptable form of payment?
  - akoncius 9y ago
    so I could not get access to content if my battery is low and I cannot mine cc ? or would I get access with "credit" so I would need to return "load" later?
    - fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
      I’m not sure, I’m just sketching out a solution to content monetization that might solve problems with current monetization schemes.
      - akoncius 9y ago
        I understand, I just wanted to show that there are lots of implications and it’s not that easy to solve.
s73ver_ 9y ago
That's even scummier than most of the ad targeting stuff out there.
na85 9y ago
What is with the huge percentage of users here that think this sort of thing is okay?
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
  I think it’s ok because I think it’s unreasonable to expect site owners to provide content free of charge: people hate paywalls and ads/tracking because they prevent access to content, add unwanted content and/or infringe on the user’s privacy. An automatic cryptocurrency micropayment system (like the Brave browser’s BAT system, if I understand correctly) could be designed to address some or all of these problems without making it impossible to monetize your content.
  - chii 9y ago
    > people hate paywalls .... An automatic cryptocurrency micropayment system and yet they are willing to expend more electricity, at a huge inefficiency, to produce vastly less monetary value to the site. I would rather just pay the 1cent.
    - zdkl 9y ago
      Yes the inefficiency in mining coins and the hefty fees impact the game theoretic value of this method but it doesn't mean there is no value in that form of compensation. If the choice is between a barren wasteland of providers removing useful content from open access or waiting on 1% of users to subsidise the rest or giving the option to users to pay while they're accessing content, I'll take some form of choice to put my hardware to use for a while if thay eventually pays for hosting and a couple meals to the admin. I think we agree that this does not work at scale but for small operators and some niches, I'm convinced this is a safe option for the siteowner not to have to mess with a payment processor and personnaly identifiable information. This last point especially might become more important with the EU regulations on the horizon.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
_jal 9y ago
It is rude to use people's property without asking[1]. I blackholed DNS for two sites who do this. [1] I'd be OK with it if they prominently indicated that, how and why they were being electricity vampires. I still wouldn't use them, but at least it wouldn't be dishonest.
- emacsgifs 9y ago
  Playing a video without my consent, even if that is an implicit contract (i.e. lead advertising video) to watch content I want, is inherently dishonest. The goal as always is to divert my attention, sell me something of dubious value or some other equally vacuous purpose. If it pays the bills for worthwhile content producers to mine crypto currency as a form of micropayment, I think that's a better trade with lower psychic cost. I have managed to make periods in my life completely free from unwanted content, and they are blissful compared to the never ending attention grabbing bs of the advertising and public relations engines of modern industry. They are simply a waste of people's time and energy. If crypto-mining is done openly, of course. It's certainly dishonest if it's not disclosed.
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
  Consider it from the site-owner’s perspective: if I visit someone’s site and if they are using the content on that site as a source of income, isn’t it rude for me to consume that content without paying for it? Ads and tracking have well-known trade-offs cryptocurrency mining have other tradeoffs but, in the end, might end up to be a better option. Also, I’m conceiving of this more as a web API browsers can implement that sites can tap into than as a chunk of JavaScript that a site pushes to its users. So, arguably, you’d have consented to this scheme by installing the browser and enabling the feature.
  - ACow_Adonis 9y ago
    Not if you do the equivalent of hanging a sign on the front door saying "please come in". Which I would argue is the equivalent of what you are doing by putting your content on a communication protocol designed to make it freely available. Indeed, such behavior is reminiscent of one of the oldest tourist scams in the book, no doubt experienced by anyone who has traveled the world in any amount. That is to say, the mark is offered something for free, usually some trivial trinket, or a photo, or something like that. The mark believes it is for free and accepts it. Once the mark has accepted the "free" item, then the scammer changes tune and implies that they should be paid for this exchange, playing on the marks feelings of guilt, obligations and fairness. Apparently this is now a respectable internet business model. Hah!
FatalBaboon 9y ago
This is going to be very easy to block: disable processing after page-load, block the most popular cryptomining JS scripts...

chesimov 9y ago

Not to be facetious, but I'd really prefer there to be fewer drawn-out videos of the nature described in the posts above. The issue of payment for content is of course real though.

na85 9y ago

I think the point is we don't want them to continue making videos.

axedwool 9y ago

I don't want people who produce videos like that to continue to make videos. I want them to go out of business.

macdiddy 9y ago
That's not really fair. Those people are simply using the current rules to their advantage to help them make a living.
- zdkl 9y ago
  I don't like this stereotyped answer but isn't this what "move fast and break things" was supposed to be about? Why did we become afraid to diverge from the norm and trends on the internet? From a consumer standpoint, uniformisation makes content parsing easier in the sense that you know what to expect and how to compare content more readily but why do people not go on a limb and take more "risk" in differentiating content? Why don't we have a glorious mess of different formats and the opportunity to choose medium? At some point I believe A/B testing and optimising for reachability put a negative pressure on variation from the norm and platform standards, and that's a tragedy of the commons.
  - Veen 9y ago
    > Why did we become afraid to diverge from the norm and trends on the internet? Because “we” wanted to get rich, or at least make a living.
    - zdkl 9y ago
      Well we can't all make a living as authors or librarians. Ads supported this delusion for a while but historically most people trying to live from their creativity/written work (or modernly, video work) have actually starved to death. If you're in it to get rich or to mke a living exclusively from your art, you better be good enough rather than expecting a sense of duty from your public to subsidise your effort. Not to say one shouldn't be incentivised to be creative, but just that I do not agree that wanting to make a living makes ads or extracting value from your public by all means ok.