7 ms·

Using the Web Monetization API for fun and profit

77 points by tomayac 11mo ago

jujugoboom 11mo ago
This is the first time I've heard of this standard and it looks interesting, but it doesn't seem like the payment processing is well standardized. I see in the W3C draft that the "Interledger Protocol" should be utilized, but looking at the wallet limitations (https://webmonetization.org/wallets/#limitations https://webmonetization.org/wallets/#limitations) it seems like there are no wallets that allow cross-wallet payments. Is that something thats planned in the future, or will wallets be allowed to lock down who can pay who?
- AdieuToLogic 11mo ago
  This is not a "standard." From their documentation[0]: Browsers already know how to interpret certain rel values because of web standards. ... The monetization link type, however, isn’t a standard yet. And nothing about the "Web Monetization" primary intent[1] is appealing as a standard worthy of being adopted: Web Monetization gives publishers more revenue options ... 0 - https://webmonetization.org/developers/link-element-webpage/#relmonetization-link-type https://webmonetization.org/developers/link-element-webpage/... 1 - https://webmonetization.org/ https://webmonetization.org/
lofaszvanitt 11mo ago
still, the problem is people have to implement it and people have to assign wallets and the like. wrong idea for the problem at hand.
kg 11mo ago
> You can adjust how much you want to pay the site per hour and also send one-time payments. The money is "streamed" every minute, which you can observe in DevTools. I guess the era of being able to leave a tab open without worrying about it is long over. Now you'll need to be careful to close every tab the moment you're done with it - perhaps after taking a screenshot of the page so you can read it more cheaply.
- mzajc 11mo ago
  What happens if you block network for the tab once it's finished loading? Does it delete the page if payments aren't going through anymore?
  - tomayac 11mo ago
    I think this would technically be possible, but less practical once it's supported natively in the browser.
- tastyfreeze 11mo ago
  When Coil did their demos years ago the payment streaming examples were videos and music. A pay per minute kind of deal. Payment streaming for read content does sound abusive especially for slow readers.
  - tomayac 11mo ago
    Web Monetization supports multimedia content monetization as well (you place the `link` in your `audio` or `video`). Don't forget that you are in control. If you're a slow reader, adjust the site's amount, so when you spend a long time on a page they don't get excessive payments.
    - tomayac 11mo ago
      Here's the docs for this: https://webmonetization.org/developers/link-element-webpage/#audio-video-and-picture-elements https://webmonetization.org/developers/link-element-webpage/.... You can monetize `audio`, `video`, and `picture` as well.
      - tomayac 11mo ago
        For the sake of completeness, you can also monetize your Atom, RSS, and JSON feeds: https://webmonetization.org/developers/rss-atom-jsonfeed/ https://webmonetization.org/developers/rss-atom-jsonfeed/.
tastyfreeze 11mo ago
Web monetization looks so promising. The big hang up for it to work is users have to have an account somewhere shared or penny transactions and payment streaming are too expensive. The cost of bank transfers kills it otherwise. Does this require a GateHub account to send and receive? The benefit of Coil was that there was no central account issuer. It works directly with the XRP ledger. The catch with that one is payments in anything other that XRP must be tokens on the ledger. I like the idea but so far I keep seeing lack of adoption, in the case of Coil, or a shared institution requirement. If either of those get fixed web monetization will take off like wild fire.
nikeee 11mo ago
Not to be confused with the already existing Payment Request API: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Payment_Request_API/Using_the_Payment_Request_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Payment_Req...
ValdikSS 11mo ago
You can also add OpenAlias DNS TXT record with your cryptowallets, also web monetization of another kind. https://openalias.org/ https://openalias.org/

77 points by tomayac 11mo ago

This is the first time I've heard of this standard and it looks interesting, but it doesn't seem like the payment processing is well standardized. I see in the W3C draft that the "Interledger Protocol" should be utilized, but looking at the wallet limitations (https://webmonetization.org/wallets/#limitations https://webmonetization.org/wallets/#limitations) it seems like there are no wallets that allow cross-wallet payments. Is that something thats planned in the future, or will wallets be allowed to lock down who can pay who?

AdieuToLogic 11mo ago
This is not a "standard." From their documentation[0]: Browsers already know how to interpret certain rel values because of web standards. ... The monetization link type, however, isn’t a standard yet. And nothing about the "Web Monetization" primary intent[1] is appealing as a standard worthy of being adopted: Web Monetization gives publishers more revenue options ... 0 - https://webmonetization.org/developers/link-element-webpage/#relmonetization-link-type https://webmonetization.org/developers/link-element-webpage/... 1 - https://webmonetization.org/ https://webmonetization.org/

lofaszvanitt 11mo ago

still, the problem is people have to implement it and people have to assign wallets and the like. wrong idea for the problem at hand.

kg 11mo ago

> You can adjust how much you want to pay the site per hour and also send one-time payments. The money is "streamed" every minute, which you can observe in DevTools. I guess the era of being able to leave a tab open without worrying about it is long over. Now you'll need to be careful to close every tab the moment you're done with it - perhaps after taking a screenshot of the page so you can read it more cheaply.

mzajc 11mo ago
What happens if you block network for the tab once it's finished loading? Does it delete the page if payments aren't going through anymore?
- tomayac 11mo ago
  I think this would technically be possible, but less practical once it's supported natively in the browser.
tastyfreeze 11mo ago
When Coil did their demos years ago the payment streaming examples were videos and music. A pay per minute kind of deal. Payment streaming for read content does sound abusive especially for slow readers.
- tomayac 11mo ago
  Web Monetization supports multimedia content monetization as well (you place the `link` in your `audio` or `video`). Don't forget that you are in control. If you're a slow reader, adjust the site's amount, so when you spend a long time on a page they don't get excessive payments.
  - tomayac 11mo ago
    Here's the docs for this: https://webmonetization.org/developers/link-element-webpage/#audio-video-and-picture-elements https://webmonetization.org/developers/link-element-webpage/.... You can monetize `audio`, `video`, and `picture` as well.
    - tomayac 11mo ago
      For the sake of completeness, you can also monetize your Atom, RSS, and JSON feeds: https://webmonetization.org/developers/rss-atom-jsonfeed/ https://webmonetization.org/developers/rss-atom-jsonfeed/.

tastyfreeze 11mo ago

Web monetization looks so promising. The big hang up for it to work is users have to have an account somewhere shared or penny transactions and payment streaming are too expensive. The cost of bank transfers kills it otherwise. Does this require a GateHub account to send and receive? The benefit of Coil was that there was no central account issuer. It works directly with the XRP ledger. The catch with that one is payments in anything other that XRP must be tokens on the ledger. I like the idea but so far I keep seeing lack of adoption, in the case of Coil, or a shared institution requirement. If either of those get fixed web monetization will take off like wild fire.

nikeee 11mo ago

Not to be confused with the already existing Payment Request API: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Payment_Request_API/Using_the_Payment_Request_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Payment_Req...

ValdikSS 11mo ago

You can also add OpenAlias DNS TXT record with your cryptowallets, also web monetization of another kind. https://openalias.org/ https://openalias.org/