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Someone should use this to create a new browser. A human user drops $100 into the browser, and each website offers a per-page-view rate, gradually deducted from

Someone should use this to create a new browser. A human user drops $100 into the browser, and each website offers a per-page-view rate, gradually deducted from the $100. In exchange the user doesn't have to suffer through advertisements.

mariusor 1y ago
Everyone seems to hate on Brave for trying something like this. Granted they use shady cryptocurrency instead of a one time fee, or subscription model, but what the hell...
mdrzn 1y ago
And we are back to: how much would you pay for a website before you access said website for the first time?
- sofixa 1y ago
  The Web Monetisation protocol solved this by doing a prorata based on how long you spent on the page.
  - mdrzn 1y ago
    What if I save the page locally on my machine? Or archive it?
    - nottorp 1y ago
      What if my phone rings and I forget to close the page? Or leave it open to read it later? Plus as one of the parent comments said, I am not paying before I get an idea what I'm paying for.
      - sofixa 1y ago
        > Plus as one of the parent comments said, I am not paying before I get an idea what I'm paying for. The logic was, you aren't paying to a website. You're paying to a broker that distributes how much you've paid to all websites you've visited that have opted in, prorated based on how much time you spent on them.
        nottorp 1y ago
        > You're paying to a broker that distributes how much you've paid to all websites you've visited that have opted in That does make sense. Although that broker is going to push for a subscription. > prorated based on how much time you spent on them If it's text, I wouldn't mind, I'm a very fast reader. But that's incentive to lengthen the "content" or maybe go all video, insert animated page transitions and stuff like that. Slow readers and people on slow internet will be penalized.
imiric 1y ago
Brave already does this with BAT[1]. It's a shame that it will never gain traction. Partly because of the cryptocurrency stigma, some missteps by Brave Inc. that have tarnished its credibility, and partly because of adtech's tight grip on the web. [1]: https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
kevlened 1y ago
Google had an experiment called Google Contributor where you could buy all your own ads. This effectively had the experience you're describing (prepay and get no ads until it runs out). They tried it twice, so someone wanted it to work. I was always curious why they shuttered it.
- Leynos 1y ago
  Tiny selection of web sites, restricted to the US, absolutely no marketing.
- mattlondon 1y ago
  Probably because people didn't want to pay. It's easy and cheap to say "I'd pay X to access website without ads!" ...but when it came to it and people had that option, essentially no-one did it.
  - imiric 1y ago
    This is because most of the time paying is not an option. And even when it is, there is a lot of friction to actually do that, even with streamlined payment services such as Stripe. The advertising business model and technology that powers it is so well established that a "free" service is much easier to manage for publishers and to access for consumers. There's also the psychological aspect. People are used to advertising in every other form of media, so seeing it online is acceptable. People expect online services to be "free", and few really understand the business transaction they're a part of, or the repercussions of it. Even when they do, many are willing to make that transaction because they value the service more than what they're giving up to access it, and they have no other choice. So it ultimately boils down to offering the choice to pay with currency, and making it frictionless for both consumers and publishers to use. And educating consumers about the real cost of advertising. The unfortunate reality is that advertising has become so profitable that in order for the payment system to work, companies would have to price their services higher than any consumer would be willing to pay for them. Or they would have to settle for lower profits, which no company would actually do. This is why you see that even when a service has a payment option, they still inevitably choose to _also_ show ads. Advertising money is simply irresistible to most people, and few have the moral backbone to resist it.
QuantumNoodle 1y ago
A problem this doesn't solve is that people are trusting LLM summaries so much that they aren't even visiting the pages linked as sources. The pages-scraped/visitor is something like 1,500 pages scraped to 1 visitor. Compare that to years ago when google advertised that for every 2 pages they scrape, you get 1 visitor. If no one read content, people aren't incentivised to write content, publishers and bloggers alike.
carlosjobim 1y ago
I've been suggesting exactly this for some time. A button in the browser to pay the asked value to view a page, and if the page is free to view the button instead turns into a donation button for voluntary donations.

mariusor 1y ago

Everyone seems to hate on Brave for trying something like this. Granted they use shady cryptocurrency instead of a one time fee, or subscription model, but what the hell...

mdrzn 1y ago

And we are back to: how much would you pay for a website before you access said website for the first time?

sofixa 1y ago
The Web Monetisation protocol solved this by doing a prorata based on how long you spent on the page.
- mdrzn 1y ago
  What if I save the page locally on my machine? Or archive it?
  - nottorp 1y ago
    What if my phone rings and I forget to close the page? Or leave it open to read it later? Plus as one of the parent comments said, I am not paying before I get an idea what I'm paying for.
    - sofixa 1y ago
      > Plus as one of the parent comments said, I am not paying before I get an idea what I'm paying for. The logic was, you aren't paying to a website. You're paying to a broker that distributes how much you've paid to all websites you've visited that have opted in, prorated based on how much time you spent on them.
      - nottorp 1y ago
        > You're paying to a broker that distributes how much you've paid to all websites you've visited that have opted in That does make sense. Although that broker is going to push for a subscription. > prorated based on how much time you spent on them If it's text, I wouldn't mind, I'm a very fast reader. But that's incentive to lengthen the "content" or maybe go all video, insert animated page transitions and stuff like that. Slow readers and people on slow internet will be penalized.

imiric 1y ago

Brave already does this with BAT[1]. It's a shame that it will never gain traction. Partly because of the cryptocurrency stigma, some missteps by Brave Inc. that have tarnished its credibility, and partly because of adtech's tight grip on the web. [1]: https://basicattentiontoken.org/ https://basicattentiontoken.org/

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

kevlened 1y ago

Google had an experiment called Google Contributor where you could buy all your own ads. This effectively had the experience you're describing (prepay and get no ads until it runs out). They tried it twice, so someone wanted it to work. I was always curious why they shuttered it.

Leynos 1y ago
Tiny selection of web sites, restricted to the US, absolutely no marketing.
mattlondon 1y ago
Probably because people didn't want to pay. It's easy and cheap to say "I'd pay X to access website without ads!" ...but when it came to it and people had that option, essentially no-one did it.
- imiric 1y ago
  This is because most of the time paying is not an option. And even when it is, there is a lot of friction to actually do that, even with streamlined payment services such as Stripe. The advertising business model and technology that powers it is so well established that a "free" service is much easier to manage for publishers and to access for consumers. There's also the psychological aspect. People are used to advertising in every other form of media, so seeing it online is acceptable. People expect online services to be "free", and few really understand the business transaction they're a part of, or the repercussions of it. Even when they do, many are willing to make that transaction because they value the service more than what they're giving up to access it, and they have no other choice. So it ultimately boils down to offering the choice to pay with currency, and making it frictionless for both consumers and publishers to use. And educating consumers about the real cost of advertising. The unfortunate reality is that advertising has become so profitable that in order for the payment system to work, companies would have to price their services higher than any consumer would be willing to pay for them. Or they would have to settle for lower profits, which no company would actually do. This is why you see that even when a service has a payment option, they still inevitably choose to _also_ show ads. Advertising money is simply irresistible to most people, and few have the moral backbone to resist it.

QuantumNoodle 1y ago

A problem this doesn't solve is that people are trusting LLM summaries so much that they aren't even visiting the pages linked as sources. The pages-scraped/visitor is something like 1,500 pages scraped to 1 visitor. Compare that to years ago when google advertised that for every 2 pages they scrape, you get 1 visitor. If no one read content, people aren't incentivised to write content, publishers and bloggers alike.

carlosjobim 1y ago

I've been suggesting exactly this for some time. A button in the browser to pay the asked value to view a page, and if the page is free to view the button instead turns into a donation button for voluntary donations.