7 ms·

There's a lot of hype but there's also a lot of potential to revolutionize commerce. imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. H

There's a lot of hype but there's also a lot of potential to revolutionize commerce. imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz?

pc86 5y ago
Not to be flippant but I would still just wait for someone to post the archive link.
UnlockedSecrets 5y ago
And what feature of cryptocurrency allows and or benefits this whereas traditional finance systems cannot?
- ejanus 5y ago
  Everybody suddenly uses same currency, and it makes it pretty easy for all to get involved. It removes currency barriers.
pjc50 5y ago
> imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. 1) nobody actually wants to pay this, though; the whole set of pre-existing arguments against micropayments apply, too many to list here. My fave one is "micropayments enable microfraud", though. And if you think cookie banners are annoying wait until you see the cryptobanners. 2) you definitely can't scale this on a blockchain, and any scalable system you build to do it will be Not A Blockchain. How many web pages does the world view in the time of a single bitcoin block? Would you say it was more or less than ten million?
- noxer 5y ago
  1) Why do people buy "pro" apps to remove ads but would not do that for content on the web? Also the micro fraud argument is kinda funny since everyone knows the ad business is full or fraud and everyone somehow involved with ads pays a huge junk for this. I think micropayment is far move fraud resistant because all the bots pretending to be humans and clicking ads do not work anymore. 2) That true. but it doesn't have to be a blockchain in fact there is already proposed protocols to do micropayment on global scale its called Interledger Protocol (ILP). Its a protocol like TCP/IP it scales the same way. And as the name suggest it can be used with multiple ledgers including blockchains but it doesn't have to be one.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    > remove ads but would not do that for content on the web The "pro" app equivalent is existing paywalls, NYT-style. > micropayment is far move fraud resistant because all the bots pretending to be humans and clicking ads do not work anymore But different sorts of fraud are imaginable, especially if you don't confirm every single payment. If you do confirm every single payment that's probably unacceptable user friction. Or the copyright problem already seen with NFTs and content farms: copy someone else's pages, charge for access to them.
    - noxer 5y ago
      Paywalls are walled gardens even if I would want to use them I cant because the internet is global but paywalls are not. Beside that its not feasible as paywalls are usually a subscription, the average user would need to have 10-100 subscriptions to cover their browsing habit. Not only is this way to expensive its also completely impractical. And it would self inflict a incentive to not leave your subscription bubble. Micropayment make it possible that I can pay without subscription without giving my personal data and without some absurd premium price that is justified by the fact that I could consume other stuff for the rest of the month/year which I likely dont want. >But different sorts of fraud are imaginable Sure and we find solutions for these. Unlike with ads everyone should be onboard blocking and fighting the fraud. with ads however thous who dont commit it can still profit from it. >If you do confirm every single payment that's probably unacceptable But there are solutions for these problems. Lets say you want to watch a youtube video, it could be free for the first 10% and then ask you to confirm payment. Then it steams payment as you watch so if you stop halfway trough you only paid half the price. >Or the copyright problem already seen with NFTs There is no such NFT copyright problem its made up nonsense. People just dont understand what they buy usually a public price of art. So its already released when sold and people can copy or store it however they want. Its worthless just like an MP3 file of a radio hit is worthless the rights on that track however may not be worthless if the owner know how to make money from it. >copy someone else's pages, charge for access to them. Already possible now. Micropayments does not change anything here. People steal stuff and "sell" it. There is no technical solution for this problem.
  - 5y ago
swarnie 5y ago
10c tip, $31 gas fee.
- ejanus 5y ago
  In some chains it is 1c
  - davidgerard 5y ago
    trouble is the interface to actual money - the only coins that have any depth of dollar liquidity are BTC and ETH, both of which are proof-of-work. Even if your low-fee shitcoin just happens to have a USD pair, it's startlingly unlikely to have enough depth not to have massive slippage on trades; so functionally, buyers have to go via BTC or ETH. This is also the fallacy of non-PoW NFT chains.
    - dlubarov 5y ago
      Looking at SOL/USDT on Binance.com [1] as an example, it looks like there are typically orders for a few thousand USDT within a 1 cent spread (0.006% of the price), or orders for a few hundred thousand USDT within a 25 cent spread (0.15% of the price). Most of us aren't trading millions at a time, and these spreads seem fairly insignificant compared to fees extracted by banks, credit card networks, etc, so is this really an issue? [1] https://www.binance.com/en/trade/SOL_USDT?layout=pro https://www.binance.com/en/trade/SOL_USDT?layout=pro
      - davidgerard 5y ago
        that's why I said actual money, not USDT - which is absolutely not actual money.
        dlubarov 5y ago
        If you don't want USDT, you can trade SOL/BUSD instead. The order book may be a little thinner, but not a big deal if you're not moving millions. While you might claim that BUSD isn't real money, you can just immediately withdraw it as fiat in your bank account, as long as Binance remains solvent. Or if you're still uncomfortable with BUSD for whatever reason, just trade e.g. SOL/USD on Coinbase.
manigandham 5y ago
Crypto is not necessary for micropayments and they have been tried several times already including by Google as well. It’s not a technical problem.
- noxer 5y ago
  Some kind of crypto IS necessary in the end. Not for the micropayment[1] itself but for funding/withdrawing. If this is done over traditional banking system it excludes half the world with access to the internet + adds fees that go to the bank. If its implemented trough internet mega corps instead of banks they get even more power than they already have + they will take a cut too + they will fight it to ever become a thing because it directly destroys their business model. On top of that comes privacy concerts and all that. It would be horrible. We dont know anything other than crypto that would globally work and isn't controlled by a single authority. https://interledger.org/rfcs/0003-interledger-protocol/ https://interledger.org/rfcs/0003-interledger-protocol/
  - manigandham 5y ago
    Crypto isn't a currency so you still need exit nodes to fiat at some point, and these are banks (or exchanges using banks on your behalf). New fintech services like Cashapp, Venmo, Paypal, Sofi, etc have done much more to improve banking access with technology than any crypto so far.
    - noxer 5y ago
      None of these services can do what crypto can and you should not want to use them anyway. They take a cut, screw you over whenever possible, have zero respect for you privacy and personal data, can exclude you from service without due process and basically put you on a no-fly list but without justification or any feasible way to fight it. Every other week these is some HN post about peoples accounts getting suspended, do you want to live in future where this happens to your "wallet"? I know people who can not open a paypal account since 10+ years. There is no way to appeal it. Also within 10 years they will all be bought up by the largest 2-3 players creating another mega corp oligopoly that makes everything worse for everyone. Wait until they exchange their "no-fly lists" and a AI gets to ruin peoples life because of statistically anomalies or something. If you dont want that you should root for crypto even if today crypto is mostly garbage and scams the tech can be used to do better.
mostly_harmless 5y ago
> imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. This doesn't need crypto. This can be done with something like Paypal. > How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz? A solution based on spite is a bad solution.
- el-salvador 5y ago
  A monthly fee could work. Like Spotify.
vrc 5y ago
Look at Google Contributor. Users didn’t want to pay even $0.01/page, and publishers didn’t want to sign up to receive those payments. More non specifically, pubs people would pay for didn’t want to dilute their existing revenue streams with micropayments, and not enough users paid for the pubs on board. The program shut down twice. There was also a product called TipJar that they similarly launched and killed that solve the first and second opportunity. In both cases, Google had a huge structural advantage of already having so many cards on file and publishers with their banks hooked up and still couldn’t cross the chasm. Somebody would need to solve these issues — not sure it’s a question of centralization
jrm4 5y ago
We did. It didn't work. Probably will never. Instead you should consider what you want. You want good writing content that's easily available and persistent? Okay, Wikipedia 100% has done this, amazingly. What can we learn from THEIR model?
300bps 5y ago
How does this scheme address the concept of decision fatigue? I’ve heard that various cryptocurrencies are going to revolutionize the web economy and even replace AWS. Maybe I’m dumb. But it sounds like profound nonsense. And I mined Bitcoin when you could still do it profitably with a GPU. I bought a new computer in March 2021 for $1,900 and used it to mine over $2,300 in ETH so far. I understand cryptocurrency fairly well but I just don’t get it.
UncleMeat 5y ago
> How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz? Google itself offered this very product. A system for micropayments that would eliminate all of the ads. Nobody used it.

pc86 5y ago

Not to be flippant but I would still just wait for someone to post the archive link.

UnlockedSecrets 5y ago

And what feature of cryptocurrency allows and or benefits this whereas traditional finance systems cannot?

ejanus 5y ago
Everybody suddenly uses same currency, and it makes it pretty easy for all to get involved. It removes currency barriers.

pjc50 5y ago

> imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. 1) nobody actually wants to pay this, though; the whole set of pre-existing arguments against micropayments apply, too many to list here. My fave one is "micropayments enable microfraud", though. And if you think cookie banners are annoying wait until you see the cryptobanners. 2) you definitely can't scale this on a blockchain, and any scalable system you build to do it will be Not A Blockchain. How many web pages does the world view in the time of a single bitcoin block? Would you say it was more or less than ten million?

noxer 5y ago
1) Why do people buy "pro" apps to remove ads but would not do that for content on the web? Also the micro fraud argument is kinda funny since everyone knows the ad business is full or fraud and everyone somehow involved with ads pays a huge junk for this. I think micropayment is far move fraud resistant because all the bots pretending to be humans and clicking ads do not work anymore. 2) That true. but it doesn't have to be a blockchain in fact there is already proposed protocols to do micropayment on global scale its called Interledger Protocol (ILP). Its a protocol like TCP/IP it scales the same way. And as the name suggest it can be used with multiple ledgers including blockchains but it doesn't have to be one.
- pjc50 5y ago
  > remove ads but would not do that for content on the web The "pro" app equivalent is existing paywalls, NYT-style. > micropayment is far move fraud resistant because all the bots pretending to be humans and clicking ads do not work anymore But different sorts of fraud are imaginable, especially if you don't confirm every single payment. If you do confirm every single payment that's probably unacceptable user friction. Or the copyright problem already seen with NFTs and content farms: copy someone else's pages, charge for access to them.
  - noxer 5y ago
    Paywalls are walled gardens even if I would want to use them I cant because the internet is global but paywalls are not. Beside that its not feasible as paywalls are usually a subscription, the average user would need to have 10-100 subscriptions to cover their browsing habit. Not only is this way to expensive its also completely impractical. And it would self inflict a incentive to not leave your subscription bubble. Micropayment make it possible that I can pay without subscription without giving my personal data and without some absurd premium price that is justified by the fact that I could consume other stuff for the rest of the month/year which I likely dont want. >But different sorts of fraud are imaginable Sure and we find solutions for these. Unlike with ads everyone should be onboard blocking and fighting the fraud. with ads however thous who dont commit it can still profit from it. >If you do confirm every single payment that's probably unacceptable But there are solutions for these problems. Lets say you want to watch a youtube video, it could be free for the first 10% and then ask you to confirm payment. Then it steams payment as you watch so if you stop halfway trough you only paid half the price. >Or the copyright problem already seen with NFTs There is no such NFT copyright problem its made up nonsense. People just dont understand what they buy usually a public price of art. So its already released when sold and people can copy or store it however they want. Its worthless just like an MP3 file of a radio hit is worthless the rights on that track however may not be worthless if the owner know how to make money from it. >copy someone else's pages, charge for access to them. Already possible now. Micropayments does not change anything here. People steal stuff and "sell" it. There is no technical solution for this problem.
- 5y ago

swarnie 5y ago

10c tip, $31 gas fee.

ejanus 5y ago
In some chains it is 1c
- davidgerard 5y ago
  trouble is the interface to actual money - the only coins that have any depth of dollar liquidity are BTC and ETH, both of which are proof-of-work. Even if your low-fee shitcoin just happens to have a USD pair, it's startlingly unlikely to have enough depth not to have massive slippage on trades; so functionally, buyers have to go via BTC or ETH. This is also the fallacy of non-PoW NFT chains.
  - dlubarov 5y ago
    Looking at SOL/USDT on Binance.com [1] as an example, it looks like there are typically orders for a few thousand USDT within a 1 cent spread (0.006% of the price), or orders for a few hundred thousand USDT within a 25 cent spread (0.15% of the price). Most of us aren't trading millions at a time, and these spreads seem fairly insignificant compared to fees extracted by banks, credit card networks, etc, so is this really an issue? [1] https://www.binance.com/en/trade/SOL_USDT?layout=pro https://www.binance.com/en/trade/SOL_USDT?layout=pro
    - davidgerard 5y ago
      that's why I said actual money, not USDT - which is absolutely not actual money.
      - dlubarov 5y ago
        If you don't want USDT, you can trade SOL/BUSD instead. The order book may be a little thinner, but not a big deal if you're not moving millions. While you might claim that BUSD isn't real money, you can just immediately withdraw it as fiat in your bank account, as long as Binance remains solvent. Or if you're still uncomfortable with BUSD for whatever reason, just trade e.g. SOL/USD on Coinbase.

manigandham 5y ago

Crypto is not necessary for micropayments and they have been tried several times already including by Google as well. It’s not a technical problem.

noxer 5y ago
Some kind of crypto IS necessary in the end. Not for the micropayment[1] itself but for funding/withdrawing. If this is done over traditional banking system it excludes half the world with access to the internet + adds fees that go to the bank. If its implemented trough internet mega corps instead of banks they get even more power than they already have + they will take a cut too + they will fight it to ever become a thing because it directly destroys their business model. On top of that comes privacy concerts and all that. It would be horrible. We dont know anything other than crypto that would globally work and isn't controlled by a single authority. https://interledger.org/rfcs/0003-interledger-protocol/ https://interledger.org/rfcs/0003-interledger-protocol/
- manigandham 5y ago
  Crypto isn't a currency so you still need exit nodes to fiat at some point, and these are banks (or exchanges using banks on your behalf). New fintech services like Cashapp, Venmo, Paypal, Sofi, etc have done much more to improve banking access with technology than any crypto so far.
  - noxer 5y ago
    None of these services can do what crypto can and you should not want to use them anyway. They take a cut, screw you over whenever possible, have zero respect for you privacy and personal data, can exclude you from service without due process and basically put you on a no-fly list but without justification or any feasible way to fight it. Every other week these is some HN post about peoples accounts getting suspended, do you want to live in future where this happens to your "wallet"? I know people who can not open a paypal account since 10+ years. There is no way to appeal it. Also within 10 years they will all be bought up by the largest 2-3 players creating another mega corp oligopoly that makes everything worse for everyone. Wait until they exchange their "no-fly lists" and a AI gets to ruin peoples life because of statistically anomalies or something. If you dont want that you should root for crypto even if today crypto is mostly garbage and scams the tech can be used to do better.

mostly_harmless 5y ago

> imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. This doesn't need crypto. This can be done with something like Paypal. > How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz? A solution based on spite is a bad solution.

el-salvador 5y ago
A monthly fee could work. Like Spotify.

vrc 5y ago

Look at Google Contributor. Users didn’t want to pay even $0.01/page, and publishers didn’t want to sign up to receive those payments. More non specifically, pubs people would pay for didn’t want to dilute their existing revenue streams with micropayments, and not enough users paid for the pubs on board. The program shut down twice. There was also a product called TipJar that they similarly launched and killed that solve the first and second opportunity. In both cases, Google had a huge structural advantage of already having so many cards on file and publishers with their banks hooked up and still couldn’t cross the chasm. Somebody would need to solve these issues — not sure it’s a question of centralization

jrm4 5y ago

We did. It didn't work. Probably will never. Instead you should consider what you want. You want good writing content that's easily available and persistent? Okay, Wikipedia 100% has done this, amazingly. What can we learn from THEIR model?

300bps 5y ago

How does this scheme address the concept of decision fatigue? I’ve heard that various cryptocurrencies are going to revolutionize the web economy and even replace AWS. Maybe I’m dumb. But it sounds like profound nonsense. And I mined Bitcoin when you could still do it profitably with a GPU. I bought a new computer in March 2021 for $1,900 and used it to mine over $2,300 in ETH so far. I understand cryptocurrency fairly well but I just don’t get it.

UncleMeat 5y ago

> How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz? Google itself offered this very product. A system for micropayments that would eliminate all of the ads. Nobody used it.