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I think these solutions are really novel and interesting but I'd like to point out that this is literally one of the use cases for cryptocurrency, or microtrans

I think these solutions are really novel and interesting but I'd like to point out that this is literally one of the use cases for cryptocurrency, or microtransactions in general. Cryptocurrencies, at least the PoW ones, offload the proof-of-work so that it doesn't need to be done in real time. Paying fractions of a penny to view websites has minimal impact on average users but is punishing to spammers.

mschuster91 2y ago
The problem is, it kills anonymity - it allows at the very least the government to tie each web page visit, each resource load, back to a real person. And no, "anonymous mixer" services don't work either. They're yet another layer of useless profiteering middlemen, which the web already has more than enough of.
- pitaj 2y ago
  What about Monero/XMR? Isn't is fully anonymous by design?
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    TOR used to make the same claims, turned out the NSA actually can to a degree correlate traffic given that they have their eyes literally everywhere on the planet. I wouldn't trust anything to be safe from the dragnet surveillance apparatus of FVEY.
    - pitaj 2y ago
      That seems to be a much weaker claim than "allows at the very least the government to tie each web page visit, each resource load, back to a real person"
      - mschuster91 2y ago
        That was related to payment via Monero/XMR/... The problem is, if you want some "proof of money"/"proof of stake", site operators set that up on their own which is a ton of work and people will not want to set up payments for their favourite porn site AND the government can trace back people from payments to site visits, or site operators contract a major vendor (similar to Stripe, Paypal, ...) who handles it and can then trivially be subpoena-ed for records.
solid_fuel 2y ago
This is one of the use-cases of proof-of-work, but the rest of what makes something cryptocurrency isn't necessary. There is no need for a blockchain here, and the cost can be paid directly in compute time.
- abetusk 2y ago
  Again, cryptocurrency would allow a proof-of-work mechanism but offload it so it needn't be real-time. That is, do the proof-of-work before visiting the website, then present the currency token that proves the work has been done. The blockchain is there to prevent double spending of the currency token. I do feel like this is a kind of "those who don't understand it are doomed to re-invent it" type of technologies.
  - solid_fuel 2y ago
    No, I understand. I WANT it to be real time. I don’t want it to be offloaded. You don’t need to worry about double spending or any of the privacy issues that come with a blockchain when the work is done real time. I know exactly how much work is being done on the server per request with this solution - one hash. There is no need to crawl through a block chain, or submit a transaction, or wait for an external system to catch up. I want a solution to these crawling bots, not a distributed database. So why would I reach for a distributed database when this simple proof of work system works better, is more understandable, and doesn’t have external dependencies?
    - abetusk 2y ago
      There's a sentiment here that I think is valid and I'm struggling to tease out the best version of it, along with providing a valid response. I'll mention that, in an extreme case, one could provide a proof-of-work challenge that's directly tied to some cryptocurrency mining effort, so that the work/energy expenditure is captured by the one providing the challenge. This has the effect of the challenger giving money to the one providing the challenge, just in a real-time proof-of-work way. Since money is effectively being exchanged anyway, this punishes systems that don't allow up-front payments to do away with the page load delay.
sva_ 2y ago
I'd rather just be able to click a link and not have to worry about wallet, transaction fees, keeping my keys safe, etc.
klysm 2y ago
> Paying fractions of a penny to view websites has minimal impact Although true in an ideal financial sense, it's demonstrably false because having a pay wall of any kind will severely limit usage.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- abetusk 2y ago
  Demonstrably false with a payment service like PayPal but could still be an option for some type of online payment. One can imagine a payment method that's transparent, integrated and seamless. Maybe something like limits can be set with features to allow, prompt or flat out deny websites that violate some payment policy. My view is that when the payment threshold is so low, the issue is inconvenience or user friction, not the amount of money involved. I suspect people would be fine with small payments if the user experience was better. For example, Amazon, Netflix, iTunes or Spotify.
- spelyytomat 2y ago
  The fractions of a penny are in compute resources. cock.li required proof of work (10 minutes on a phone browser) to register a new mailbox before it went down.
numpad0 2y ago
Patron sites are a bit like that, but undermining effect is real - content quality shows a down trend when real Internet points become the metric, as opposed to fake ones.
thayne 2y ago
But how do you solve the transaction cost problem? It doesn't make sense to pay a fraction of a cent for access when you have to pay a lot more than that in order to transfer the value.
- sadeshmukh 2y ago
  Isn't that the value proposition of crypto?

mschuster91 2y ago

The problem is, it kills anonymity - it allows at the very least the government to tie each web page visit, each resource load, back to a real person. And no, "anonymous mixer" services don't work either. They're yet another layer of useless profiteering middlemen, which the web already has more than enough of.

pitaj 2y ago
What about Monero/XMR? Isn't is fully anonymous by design?
- mschuster91 2y ago
  TOR used to make the same claims, turned out the NSA actually can to a degree correlate traffic given that they have their eyes literally everywhere on the planet. I wouldn't trust anything to be safe from the dragnet surveillance apparatus of FVEY.
  - pitaj 2y ago
    That seems to be a much weaker claim than "allows at the very least the government to tie each web page visit, each resource load, back to a real person"
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      That was related to payment via Monero/XMR/... The problem is, if you want some "proof of money"/"proof of stake", site operators set that up on their own which is a ton of work and people will not want to set up payments for their favourite porn site AND the government can trace back people from payments to site visits, or site operators contract a major vendor (similar to Stripe, Paypal, ...) who handles it and can then trivially be subpoena-ed for records.

solid_fuel 2y ago

This is one of the use-cases of proof-of-work, but the rest of what makes something cryptocurrency isn't necessary. There is no need for a blockchain here, and the cost can be paid directly in compute time.

abetusk 2y ago
Again, cryptocurrency would allow a proof-of-work mechanism but offload it so it needn't be real-time. That is, do the proof-of-work before visiting the website, then present the currency token that proves the work has been done. The blockchain is there to prevent double spending of the currency token. I do feel like this is a kind of "those who don't understand it are doomed to re-invent it" type of technologies.
- solid_fuel 2y ago
  No, I understand. I WANT it to be real time. I don’t want it to be offloaded. You don’t need to worry about double spending or any of the privacy issues that come with a blockchain when the work is done real time. I know exactly how much work is being done on the server per request with this solution - one hash. There is no need to crawl through a block chain, or submit a transaction, or wait for an external system to catch up. I want a solution to these crawling bots, not a distributed database. So why would I reach for a distributed database when this simple proof of work system works better, is more understandable, and doesn’t have external dependencies?
  - abetusk 2y ago
    There's a sentiment here that I think is valid and I'm struggling to tease out the best version of it, along with providing a valid response. I'll mention that, in an extreme case, one could provide a proof-of-work challenge that's directly tied to some cryptocurrency mining effort, so that the work/energy expenditure is captured by the one providing the challenge. This has the effect of the challenger giving money to the one providing the challenge, just in a real-time proof-of-work way. Since money is effectively being exchanged anyway, this punishes systems that don't allow up-front payments to do away with the page load delay.

sva_ 2y ago

I'd rather just be able to click a link and not have to worry about wallet, transaction fees, keeping my keys safe, etc.

klysm 2y ago

> Paying fractions of a penny to view websites has minimal impact Although true in an ideal financial sense, it's demonstrably false because having a pay wall of any kind will severely limit usage.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
abetusk 2y ago
Demonstrably false with a payment service like PayPal but could still be an option for some type of online payment. One can imagine a payment method that's transparent, integrated and seamless. Maybe something like limits can be set with features to allow, prompt or flat out deny websites that violate some payment policy. My view is that when the payment threshold is so low, the issue is inconvenience or user friction, not the amount of money involved. I suspect people would be fine with small payments if the user experience was better. For example, Amazon, Netflix, iTunes or Spotify.
spelyytomat 2y ago
The fractions of a penny are in compute resources. cock.li required proof of work (10 minutes on a phone browser) to register a new mailbox before it went down.

numpad0 2y ago

Patron sites are a bit like that, but undermining effect is real - content quality shows a down trend when real Internet points become the metric, as opposed to fake ones.

thayne 2y ago

But how do you solve the transaction cost problem? It doesn't make sense to pay a fraction of a cent for access when you have to pay a lot more than that in order to transfer the value.

sadeshmukh 2y ago
Isn't that the value proposition of crypto?