4 ms·

This is the dream of microtransactions and agents-paying-for-access that so many people have always wanted. It was never going to be implemented on existing pay

by arjie 4mo ago

This is the dream of microtransactions and agents-paying-for-access that so many people have always wanted. It was never going to be implemented on existing payment rails so it would have to be something like this. I can't wait to see it in play somewhere because I am increasingly annoyed that I have to own API keys on various platforms etc. etc. I just want my agent to make decisions and spend a limited amount of money (this is on me to cover) just like a human agent can. If we get the other promise of "read this news but pay a few cents for it" that would be incredible too. Very excited for this new thing.

wpapper 4mo ago
Thank you for the kind words! I’m a PM on the team that is building this. I’ve believed in microtransactions for over a decade and hope that we can finally bring them to life. Proper spend delegation and permissions is a big focus of ours - it’s great to let your agent have discretion, as long as the damage from going off course is limited. Definitely want people to feel comfortable experimenting with emerging tech Feel free to email me at (my username)@(my company) if you have any feature requests or things you’d like to see
- johndough 4mo ago
  Do you have any plans on mitigating the privacy consequences of microtransactions? I'm fine with paying for (some) content, but I'd prefer if there weren't some companies using that information to manipulate me or the more impressionable members of our society.
  - wpapper 4mo ago
    We plan to make it easy for both buyers and sellers to rotate addresses. Done right, everything should be pseudonymous to the outside world. (Full privacy is a harder problem to solve, but address rotation is a good 80/20 solution for now)
    - ethbr1 4mo ago
      Good to hear. I think web servers monetizing any user identifiers possible should be assumed by this point in the web's evolution, and precluded to the extent possible at the protocol level. No one is going to say "Oh, we've got micro-transaction revenue now, let's do away with ad tracking." They're going to say "Great, now we have both streams of revenue." If Cloudflare et al. are stepping into the middle of the transactions, I'd much rather scope my identity leakage to only them than everyone running a web server.
    - seany 4mo ago
      IMHO this is only interesting if it _truely_ breaks a KYC path. Otherwise; who cares?
- IgorPartola 4mo ago
  Please tell me this will be IPv6 only or at least IPv6 first! Or allow differentiated pricing so IPv4 calls can be made more expensive. CF, as much as I have issues with the constant CAPTCHAS I run into and blocking my Hurricane Electric tunnel every so often, is in a unique position to get us past having to support the legacy internet protocol.
- fizzbuzzdizz 4mo ago
  first video games, then phone apps, and now finally the web. the micro transactionification of everything is complete! what a wonderful world we live in. just know people will remember your role you played in this, and if you think history is going to look at you kindly you have a very very rude awakening comming
  - throwthrowuknow 4mo ago
    This is an attempt to fix the currently broken payment system for the web that has caused a lot of the problems we face: clickbait, paywalls, requiring account signup, ad bloat, personal info collection, etc. It would enable informational sites to fund themselves with small anonymous payments per article instead of squeezing ad revenue and personal data out of their customers. Incumbents will hopefully be disrupted by this enabling more independent authors to actually make a living.
    - fizzbuzzdizz 4mo ago
      if i made a list of the worst possible solutions the problems you just listed number one on that list is this idea. if you think for a second that this will solve even ONE of those problems i have a bridge to sell you clickbait: the revenue per click is going to go up thus driving even more incentive to produce clickbait titles with no real content (hey they have already paid by the time they find out its not real but o well). also enter the age of AI agent clickbait designed specifically to entice them. you just made the existing problem worse and created a new one paywalls: well yeah, it makes the paywall go away, by paying, just like you could today not collecting personal info: yeah other than the ledger of every single article you’ve ever clicked and paid for account signups: you think cloudflare will be the only one in the game? welcome to a world of 50 different micropayment wallets you have to maintain and keep funded or you wont be able to browse the internet
  - tln 4mo ago
    I remember feeding arcade machines coin after coin, buying magazines and newspapers, and paying to see a movie. Those aren't all microtransactions but they are direct purchase -> consume content. So is the rise of microtransactions mostly history repeating itself? There are nuances but web microtransactions feel a lot more like putting a quarter in to an arcade machine than the iap for phone apps.
incompatible 4mo ago
A dream for some, a nightmare for others. People locked out from much of the Internet because they don't have enough money. Of course, the prices would usually be set at whatever maximises revenue, just check out scientific journal publishing.
- cedws 4mo ago
  Conversely this has the potential to unlock the internet. How often have you clicked a paywalled link on HN and moved on because you don't want to go through the hassle and pay $20 to read an article? If you could be frictionlessly billed 10c to read the article instead, wouldn't you be more willing? I'm actually OK with paying a fair price for the content I consume, I just don't want to be paying hundreds of subscriptions for websites that I might only visit twice a year.
  - incompatible 4mo ago
    Presumably, nobody would offer the 10c per page unless they were making more than the $20 / month or whatever previously. So people will be paying more. Then add all the sites that currently just get what they can with advertising, and now they can become pay-per-view.
    - skybrian 4mo ago
      They weren't getting the $20 / month from users who bounce off. Seems more likely that subscriptions, advertising, and microtransactions will coexist.
      - sanswork 4mo ago
        They have to get almost 200 more conversions to make up for the single subscriber. Given a lot of these services offer $1 entry subscriptions and people still bounce it's unlikely you'll have a mass market excited to pay $0.10 everytime they want to read an article to make up for the person paying $20 to read a handful everyday. Microtransactions have existed in a bunch of forms over the past 20 years and always fail to find take up because the mental load in deciding to pay or not is higher than the value receive. Maybe ideal for agents but how many people are going to trust their agents with enough of a balance.
thm 4mo ago
People never wanted microtransactions, and agents are not people.
- phrotoma 4mo ago
  Hello. One people here, and I would like microtransactions please.
- nerdsniper 4mo ago
  I always wanted my browser to send a couple cents for each news article I read, rather than getting advertisements or paywalls.

by arjie 4mo ago

wpapper 4mo ago

Thank you for the kind words! I’m a PM on the team that is building this. I’ve believed in microtransactions for over a decade and hope that we can finally bring them to life. Proper spend delegation and permissions is a big focus of ours - it’s great to let your agent have discretion, as long as the damage from going off course is limited. Definitely want people to feel comfortable experimenting with emerging tech Feel free to email me at (my username)@(my company) if you have any feature requests or things you’d like to see

johndough 4mo ago
Do you have any plans on mitigating the privacy consequences of microtransactions? I'm fine with paying for (some) content, but I'd prefer if there weren't some companies using that information to manipulate me or the more impressionable members of our society.
- wpapper 4mo ago
  We plan to make it easy for both buyers and sellers to rotate addresses. Done right, everything should be pseudonymous to the outside world. (Full privacy is a harder problem to solve, but address rotation is a good 80/20 solution for now)
  - ethbr1 4mo ago
    Good to hear. I think web servers monetizing any user identifiers possible should be assumed by this point in the web's evolution, and precluded to the extent possible at the protocol level. No one is going to say "Oh, we've got micro-transaction revenue now, let's do away with ad tracking." They're going to say "Great, now we have both streams of revenue." If Cloudflare et al. are stepping into the middle of the transactions, I'd much rather scope my identity leakage to only them than everyone running a web server.
  - seany 4mo ago
    IMHO this is only interesting if it _truely_ breaks a KYC path. Otherwise; who cares?
IgorPartola 4mo ago
Please tell me this will be IPv6 only or at least IPv6 first! Or allow differentiated pricing so IPv4 calls can be made more expensive. CF, as much as I have issues with the constant CAPTCHAS I run into and blocking my Hurricane Electric tunnel every so often, is in a unique position to get us past having to support the legacy internet protocol.
fizzbuzzdizz 4mo ago
first video games, then phone apps, and now finally the web. the micro transactionification of everything is complete! what a wonderful world we live in. just know people will remember your role you played in this, and if you think history is going to look at you kindly you have a very very rude awakening comming
- throwthrowuknow 4mo ago
  This is an attempt to fix the currently broken payment system for the web that has caused a lot of the problems we face: clickbait, paywalls, requiring account signup, ad bloat, personal info collection, etc. It would enable informational sites to fund themselves with small anonymous payments per article instead of squeezing ad revenue and personal data out of their customers. Incumbents will hopefully be disrupted by this enabling more independent authors to actually make a living.
  - fizzbuzzdizz 4mo ago
    if i made a list of the worst possible solutions the problems you just listed number one on that list is this idea. if you think for a second that this will solve even ONE of those problems i have a bridge to sell you clickbait: the revenue per click is going to go up thus driving even more incentive to produce clickbait titles with no real content (hey they have already paid by the time they find out its not real but o well). also enter the age of AI agent clickbait designed specifically to entice them. you just made the existing problem worse and created a new one paywalls: well yeah, it makes the paywall go away, by paying, just like you could today not collecting personal info: yeah other than the ledger of every single article you’ve ever clicked and paid for account signups: you think cloudflare will be the only one in the game? welcome to a world of 50 different micropayment wallets you have to maintain and keep funded or you wont be able to browse the internet
- tln 4mo ago
  I remember feeding arcade machines coin after coin, buying magazines and newspapers, and paying to see a movie. Those aren't all microtransactions but they are direct purchase -> consume content. So is the rise of microtransactions mostly history repeating itself? There are nuances but web microtransactions feel a lot more like putting a quarter in to an arcade machine than the iap for phone apps.

incompatible 4mo ago

A dream for some, a nightmare for others. People locked out from much of the Internet because they don't have enough money. Of course, the prices would usually be set at whatever maximises revenue, just check out scientific journal publishing.

cedws 4mo ago
Conversely this has the potential to unlock the internet. How often have you clicked a paywalled link on HN and moved on because you don't want to go through the hassle and pay $20 to read an article? If you could be frictionlessly billed 10c to read the article instead, wouldn't you be more willing? I'm actually OK with paying a fair price for the content I consume, I just don't want to be paying hundreds of subscriptions for websites that I might only visit twice a year.
- incompatible 4mo ago
  Presumably, nobody would offer the 10c per page unless they were making more than the $20 / month or whatever previously. So people will be paying more. Then add all the sites that currently just get what they can with advertising, and now they can become pay-per-view.
  - skybrian 4mo ago
    They weren't getting the $20 / month from users who bounce off. Seems more likely that subscriptions, advertising, and microtransactions will coexist.
    - sanswork 4mo ago
      They have to get almost 200 more conversions to make up for the single subscriber. Given a lot of these services offer $1 entry subscriptions and people still bounce it's unlikely you'll have a mass market excited to pay $0.10 everytime they want to read an article to make up for the person paying $20 to read a handful everyday. Microtransactions have existed in a bunch of forms over the past 20 years and always fail to find take up because the mental load in deciding to pay or not is higher than the value receive. Maybe ideal for agents but how many people are going to trust their agents with enough of a balance.

thm 4mo ago

People never wanted microtransactions, and agents are not people.

phrotoma 4mo ago
Hello. One people here, and I would like microtransactions please.
nerdsniper 4mo ago
I always wanted my browser to send a couple cents for each news article I read, rather than getting advertisements or paywalls.