
Web Monetization - manx
https://webmonetization.org/
======
emmanueloga_
As usual there seem to be fragmented efforts going on. Does anybody here know
what's the difference between these two?

* [https://webmonetization.org/specification.html](https://webmonetization.org/specification.html)

"Web Monetization is an API that allows websites to request small payments
from users facilitated by the browser and the user's Web Monetization
provider."

* [https://www.w3.org/TR/webpayments-overview/](https://www.w3.org/TR/webpayments-overview/)

" ? "

~~~
ahopebailie
Those two efforts address different use cases.

Web Monetization is an API for websites that wish to accept a stream of small
micropayments as long as the user is on the site. This suits pay-as-you-use
content and service models and is a good substitute for advertising revenue as
it's passive (no user interaction required).

Web Payments (there are two APIs: [https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-
request/](https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request/) and
[https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-handler/](https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-
handler/)) are discreet payments requested by the website and explicitly
authorised by the user. These are best suited to use cases like ecommerce,
donations etc.

~~~
emmanueloga_
nice! I think these paragraphs should be added to the top of both sites :-)

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mundo
If anyone involved with this stops by, could you clarify how Interledger,
Coil, and Ripple are related, if at all? It seems like this (Web Monetization)
is an attempt to make a w3c standard around browsers initiating transactions
out of fintech accounts that support Interledger (a protocol developed by
Ripple for moving currency from one ledger to another using escrow) developed
by Coil (a micropayments platform), but I might be missing something...

~~~
martijn9612
My understanding is that Interledger is the backend which Coil uses to send
payments. Interledger is able to use multiple currencies, ranging from crypto
to fiat. Ripple is mostly just building the infrastructure for it, enabling
growth in the crypto ecosystem.

I think, for them, the payoff would be that using XRP is be the cheapest
solution in the end, which would make it interesting. Also quite important,
they also directly benefit from there being more entries in all orderbooks,
since their software will be more efficient (ODL, on-demand liquidity). They
have a benefit for the entire (all cryptos) ecosystem to thrive.

~~~
ahopebailie
This is a pretty good summary.

Interledger (interledger.org) is a protocol stack and a network. The network
consists of a number of companies that have setup arrangements to settle
payments between them via different payment rails and implemented the
Interledger protocol to make those payments.

The Interledger network is used to send payments between these companies
consisting of millions of tiny packets (each worth nano-cents) allowing for
very small amounts to be sent at close to zero cost.

Coil is one of the companies using the Interledger network as it is perfect
for our use case of Web Monetization (which is only viable on a payment
network that allows very small payments without a fixed fee).

We originally developed the Interledger protocol at Ripple and there are still
folks at Ripple that participate in the community. I think Ripple's incentive
for seeing Interledger succeed are well described above.

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chris_f
I am rooting for this, but I have a hard time understanding how it can gain
mass acceptance.

Coil [0] is also an interesting app built on top of the Web Monetization API.

[0] [https://coil.com/](https://coil.com/)

~~~
matdehaast
Chris_f I would love someone on our team to talk to you. We are attempting to
solve those pain points by working with partners like you. Email me matt at
coil domain

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tannhaeuser
I'm wondering where telcos and ISPs stand in this context. I mean, given
almost everybody owns a mobile, and telcos already have your details and
payment data anyway, it's surprising that no telco-backed payment solution has
emerged (except for maybe mpesa in Africa), when telcos are already part of a
highly regulated market (in EU at least) and could be further regulated to
provide payments in a non-discriminatory way to the benefit of both the telco
and the user. In the 1990s, downloadable ringtones with anonymous payments via
special phone numbers were widely used, making use of MMS which has an option
to request paid content where the UI asks you if you want to accept the paid
content. What's the reason for this not taking off? Is it that previous
efforts were failures, or that Telcos were too greedy or what? Or was it
ruined by Google and Apple who'd rather want you to consume their ads or paid
media offerings?

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6510
Since the early 90's I've argued that banks should join forces and make a
phone or at least a chip for a phone. I talk with a few banking people not to
low on their food chain but they didn't understand it at all:

Phone companies are doing transactions per second which requires them to
replicate a bank. It might be that you can only buy one thing today (calls)
prepaid phones are ordinary bank accounts and phone contracts are credit
cards. Where do you, as a banker, think this is going to go eventually? To add
to this insanity [I added], you have a 0.50 cent per minute help line. You are
already using their bank to sell support to your customers. Hundreds of
guilders are transferred per person from your accounts to your competitor
every month! Compare the service level: If I don't use the phone often enough
they steal my money and close my account!

Over the many years that followed I got properly robbed by phone companies
multiple times and hear at least 30 crazy stories from people I know. Schemes
not even the greediest banker could dream up. They would go to prison fast.

~~~
pjc50
This is effectively M-PESA.

As usual, the incumbents don't care and have ossified structures and a poor
understanding of technology. Banks, in particular, care least about the bank
accounts - they're almost a loss leader to get people in for the real
business, which is loans, especially mortgages.

~~~
6510
Right, but we take a mortgage with them because we already use their other
services. 10 cent funeral insurance is a gold mine. I suppose they will stay
ignorant until some random tech giant lets you buy the house from the street
and unlock the door while drones fly in your belongings.

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throwawaysea
Can someone explain how this might me made resistant to payment blockades
erected by Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and the like?

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Can someone explain how this might me made resistant to payment blockades
> erected by Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and the like?

I'm kind of surprised nobody has automated using cryptocurrency for this.

It's possible to buy e.g. Bitcoin with a credit card from a hundred places
(right?), so somebody creates a website that takes the user's credit card
info, passes it through to any Bitcoin seller and then receives the Bitcoin
and transfers the value to the target. From the user's perspective they just
paid the target with a credit card.

The party actually charging the credit card is the Bitcoin seller, who isn't
affiliated with the proxy transaction at all and could be transparently
swapped out for anyone who sells cryptocurrency and accepts credit cards
without the seller even being aware of the indirection.

You could presumably do the same thing with any asset whatsoever. The user
gets a charge on their card for gold bullion or baseball cards, which get
shipped to the payment exchange and then liquidated again with the proceeds
going to the target. But that's probably just unnecessary overhead compared to
using cryptocurrency.

If there are laws against this in some countries, the site itself would only
be glue code running on a webserver, so couldn't it just be located in any
place where doing this is legal?

~~~
pjc50
> somebody creates a website that takes the user's credit card info, passes it
> through to any Bitcoin seller and then receives the Bitcoin and transfers
> the value to the target

Two things go wrong:

\- credit transactions are reversible and bitcoin isn't, so the middle party
gets stiffed by fraud

\- you have to have a merchant account to take credit payments, and the
networks will blacklist you if you do things like this

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> credit transactions are reversible and bitcoin isn't, so the middle party
> gets stiffed by fraud

So they hold the Bitcoin in escrow until the reversibility period has expired.
Also, this is presumably what the independent Bitcoin seller has to do anyway,
because it's their problem rather than the middle man's.

> you have to have a merchant account to take credit payments, and the
> networks will blacklist you if you do things like this

But the middle party isn't taking credit card payments -- that's the point.
They're just forwarding the user's credit card info to any unaffiliated third
party who sells Bitcoin and accepts credit cards, and then giving the Bitcoin
to the target. They're not really a payment processor at all, they're just a
process automation website for doing a multi-step transaction in one step to
reduce friction. (Though they are in a perfect position to take a small cut to
cover their costs.)

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cercatrova
Can someone explain how with web monetization we won't have microtransactions
on the Internet as we do with games? i.e. I don't want to pay per article
read, as that would take away from the unlimited nature of the internet, where
for a flat fee to my ISP, I can read/watch/listen to whatever I want.

~~~
matdehaast
That is a great question and partly why there is valuing in having a Web
Monetization Provider such as Coil. The job of the provider is to optimize and
distribute the spend in a way that gives you the best experience. There is
still much to be explored here but the basic premise is that the Provider
basically makes micro-decisions for you so you don't have to.

~~~
cercatrova
So now I pay the ISP as well as a third party? Seems excessive, it's like
streaming services all over again. Some content will be gated behind one
provider, and others behind another.

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JacobSeated
Without a concise and fact-based description of what constitutes "corrupt
business models", I think they ought to avoid mentioning "corruption"
entirely; it does not really serve a useful purpose.

~~~
matdehaast
That is fair feedback, thanks. Will raise an issue in the repo.

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aabbcc1241
It is relative easy to ask developers to implement ways to charge users; how
accessible is it to the end users?

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bobblywobbles
The only icon I recognized was Angular on the page.

I feel though a standard of sending money is a little too similar for paying a
vendor. I'd personally prefer companies to handle this than a recommendation,
because who is to say my payment details are saved and then a malicious script
sends the bad actor my money?

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thearchitect1
No thanks

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zelly
Does Brave implement this? LOL

~~~
ahopebailie
No. Although it would be great if they did.

