
Webpass - freitasm
https://webpass.io/
======
LamaOfRuin
Until services like this make their list of participating sites available,
they strike me as amounting to a scam (regardless of how noble their
intentions).

If they have no partners, they still collect money, but have no one to give it
to at the end of the month, so they'll have to keep it.

I also have no desire for the entire subscription to go to a website I visit
one time in a month because they're the only one participating. This is not
necessarily a deal breaker, but I can't even make an informed decision without
a list of participating sites.

~~~
saward
If a subscriber doesn't visit any of our existing partners, then we don't
pocket that money which was intended for websites. Instead, it's set aside as
a fund for helping new websites to join, with a particular priority on those
sites that our subscribers use the most.

It may not be so bad if all of a subscriber's money goes towards a single
publisher. We measure rates in terms of RPM. In such a circumstance, that
single publisher is receiving an excellent RPM, and that gives us a good
argument for convincing new websites to join.

As you can imagine, there are many things on our to-do list -- but a list of
participating sites seems to be frequently requested, so that needs to move up
in priority.

~~~
aluhut
A list of participating sites should be your absolute number 1 priority. Like,
a call away.

It is what I buy on your page.

------
andy_ppp
This is scary - you mean I _pay you_ to track every website I visit and you
transparently pay them to not show Ads?

It doesn't say who get's what data, which sites are involved and there is no
way I'm installing their browser plugin! Oh dear!

~~~
saward
Check out our privacy policy at
[https://webpass.io/privacy](https://webpass.io/privacy) for a detailed
explanation of what we do with your data. If there are any scenarios that
aren't clearly explained that concern you, please let me know and I can have
the policy updated.

~~~
joosters
Does your service block trackers as well as ads? It's not clear at all what
exactly gets blocked.

Mind you, since the service acts as a tracker in its own right, people wanting
to avoid being tracked are unlikely to use it in the first place...

~~~
freitasm
I am the OP. I run a website that uses webpass.io. I am not posting a link to
the site to avoid self-promotion but it should be easy enough to find.

With that said, here is MY implementation. Other publishers may do it
differently.

Our site is a discussion forum. People can browse at will but only logged in
users can post and reply to topics.

We run advertising with Google DFP. A few years back we started offering a
subscription where users pay us a recurring fee and they have the option to
turn ads on/off in their profile.

I myself thought of using a micro-payment service but I wanted something easy.

The way webpass works is by their add-on sending a unique token on every page
request. If there's a token my code checks with their server if it's a valid
token. If yes we then have two options:

\- if you are not logged in then we completely remove the ad scripts BEFORE
sending the page to the browser client.

\- if you are logged in we treat your session as a subscriber session and will
send or not the ad scripts based on your profile preferences. This means you
can go to your profile page and turn ads on/off.

Using webpass made the experience better for our users because even those
people who don't want to create another web profile and pay another
subscription can still get to our site ad free.

Does it make sense now?

------
yegle
I like Google Contributor more: you as a visitor participate in the ad bidding
and win the ad space if your bid wins. The website gets exactly what he would
get from your visit as before.

~~~
freitasm
Too complicated for people to understand and their funds can get depleted very
quickly. Also some websites run Google AdSense as an infill, so Google
Contributor doesn't really deal with publishers that have a direct sold
inventory first, AdSense second policy.

------
freitasm
The webpass.io subscription service is a change from the standard consumer -
publisher relationship. Instead of having to create and maintain subscriptions
with different websites, consumers can subscribe to a single service and
affiliated websites can check with the platform to confirm entitlement - thus
eliminating friction.

Depending on how websites configure the service customers don't need to create
local accounts to get benefits - unless of course sites require accounts for
things such as posting comments in topics and articles, or using other non-
subscriber's related services.

I am not involved with the service, except as being a publisher using the
platform as an alternative to ad-based revenue/subscription model.

~~~
deprave
What is your website? Did you completely remove ads from it in favor of
webpass.io?

~~~
freitasm
I posted this reply to another question, but will repost here for your
benefit:

I am the OP. I run a website that uses webpass.io. I am not posting a link to
the site to avoid self-promotion but it should be easy enough to find.

With that said, here is MY implementation. Other publishers may do it
differently.

Our site is a discussion forum. People can browse at will but only logged in
users can post and reply to topics.

We run advertising with Google DFP. A few years back we started offering a
subscription where users pay us a recurring fee and they have the option to
turn ads on/off in their profile.

I myself thought of using a micro-payment service but I wanted something easy.

The way webpass works is by their add-on sending a unique token on every page
request. If there's a token my code checks with their server if it's a valid
token. If yes we then have two options:

\- if you are not logged in then we completely remove the ad scripts BEFORE
sending the page to the browser client.

\- if you are logged in we treat your session as a subscriber session and will
send or not the ad scripts based on your profile preferences. This means you
can go to your profile page and turn ads on/off.

Using webpass made the experience better for our users because even those
people who don't want to create another web profile and pay another
subscription can still get to our site ad free.

------
jacques_chester
Oh drat, another competitor. I am losing track of who I am trying to beat.

Google Contributor, Kachingle, Webpass, Brave, Flattr, Blendle and I have
probably overlooked a bunch. There's also a deadpool with Sprinkepenny,
Contenture, Readability and -- again -- I've probably overlooked a few.

The core problem is preventing two classes of attack:

1\. Visit multiplication by publishers, intended to over-represent them in the
monthly scoring.

2\. Money-laundering of stolen cards by using bots to sign up and visit an
attacker-controlled site.

There is also the matter of preventing a publisher in the middle from tracking
users by piggybacking on shared identifiers.

To my very great shame, I've spent too much of my time solving these problems
rather than working on the business side of things.

Edit: at least it's another Australian :)

~~~
saward
Australian, too? Would you be able to get in touch? There are contact details
on our website.

------
novium
Tried to find the creators that have joined, but found no listing, did I miss
it or is there none?

~~~
ytjohn
I believe it's the latter: you already have the list of creators that joined.

------
cimm
I use an ad blocker because I hate the idea being tracked. Hiding ads is
simply a plus. I like the idea behind Webpass but they do nothing to prevent
the tracking part of the whole ad blocking discussion.

~~~
saward
I'm one of the co-founders of Webpass.io, and a dislike of being tracked is
the primary reason why I am inclined towards using an adblocker myself. Before
I realised the amount of tracking that went on, I hadn't been motivated enough
to use an adblocker.

Webpass.io has been designed with this in mind. Webpass.io involves removing
the advertiser from the transaction -- partnering sites remove advertisements,
which should eliminate tracking by advertisers. When it comes to trackers from
other sources (e.g., analytics), you can continue to use plugins like Ghostery
or the EasyPrivacy list.

Webpass.io is a way for you to support websites, that is compatible with
whatever means you use to protect your privacy. You don't need to opt into
ads/trackers/third party cookies for our service to work. We track little from
our users (check our privacy policy), and we have plans for the future to make
our privacy features even stronger by offering (near) anonymous use of our
system.

As for our own website, we have avoided using any code that could be used to
track you by third parties -- no social media buttons that talk back to their
original servers, no third-party commenting system, no third-party analytics,
and so on.

------
dperfect
The pricing page is a good example of what _not_ to do. If you're going to
list distinguishing features/limits for various plans, please don't put
"unlimited" on the free plan, limits on other plans, and force everyone to dig
through your terms of service just to understand the real limits.

Also, a plan that automatically "upgrades" based on criteria tucked away in
the ToS should probably just be called a trial, and the conditions that cause
that trial to be converted to a paid plan should be explained somewhere on the
pricing page.

~~~
qq66
also the .50 in a really small font, making it $5.50 not $5.00.

------
aorth
_> Adblockers deny money for websites without replacing it._

I hate the way this frames the debate. Ads invade my privacy, slow down my
Internet browsing, and consume my network and device resources—why can't the
cost for content writers, servers, etc come from some other business model
than invading my privacy?

~~~
freitasm
The current model for alternative revenue sources is... "content". Mainly
"sponsored content" where publishers post reviews and whitepapers, some times
not disclosing their relationship with the advertisers. I think this is worst
than ads.

------
codezero
In their code examples they indicate that this works by:

    
    
      1) plugin sets header key
      2) the site servings ads needs to hit an API endpoint to verify 
         the header keys' value before rendering ads.
    

This seems really oversimplified since ads are spread all over most pages, so
it first needs to block rendering to wait for a reply from the API, then each
ad needs to be wrapped in a conditional. I wonder how well this works with the
ads, since I assume they are not set up for conditional loading.

~~~
homero
The page simply removes the ads before serving

~~~
freitasm
Correct. In our case we check with the endpoint and if the key is correct and
approved we just serve the page WITHOUT the ad scripts.

This not only make pages smaller but also reduces the amount of processing on
the client browser. Overall it's as fast, if not faster, than an ad blocker.

------
petercooper
So even at the "worst" pricing of 0.15¢ per page ($3/mo for 2000 pages) and
assuming a 100% payout, a big, high traffic publisher like Gawker would have
made under $2m in 2014 (on 1.3bn pageviews) versus the $45m they actually
netted.

The numbers would be even more awful for niche, high quality publishers (no
offense to Gawker, but they're mass media).

This has no chance of replacing anyone's income, and barely a chance at
significantly supplementing one, until we're talking cents per page.

~~~
Eridrus
I don't think you're argument is wrong overall, but I think your math is
orders of magnitude wrong. 0.15c/page is a $1.50 CPM rate, and that's really
is pretty low, for the web and premium publishers in particular, your math
puts Gawker at $35 CPM, however I think your math is off by about a factor of
by about a factor of 2-3.

Some quick googling will show the Gawker advertising revenue number is
actually $30m; $15m being from ecommerce/licensing + native
advertising/sponsored content.

I'm not sure where you pulled 1.3bn/yr from, but at $30m in revenue that would
assume Gawker is obtaining CPMs of $23 for _all_ of it's advertising. $23 CPMs
are real: in video advertising, but they are totally out of whack for display,
even premium display is only commanding about half that:
[http://www.mediafuse.com/resources/a-guide-to-cpm-
rates](http://www.mediafuse.com/resources/a-guide-to-cpm-rates)

I don't know what CPMs Gawker is actually getting, but I think that it's
likely that your traffic estimate is probably off by quite a bit since 3rd
party traffic estimates are notorious for undercounting traffic.

So, Gawker probably wouldn't be excited about this, but very few people are
able to monetize display at that rate, so you may find some publishers that
are still interested at this rate, though I do agree that it's particularly
low and is only interesting as a last ditch effort of monetizing ad blockers.
Though maybe that will be useful in certain communities that heavily favor
them.

~~~
look_lookatme
Quantcasts puts Gawker Media _Network_'s traffic numbers for 2014 at 7.2b for
that time period, so that would give a pre-partner (display) RPM of $4.1

3e7 / 7.2e9 x 1000

And a post partner RPM of $6.25

4.5e7 / 7.2e9 x 1000

This seems plausible.

I think it's fair to consider both since ad-blockers will pick up a bunch of
the listing/affiliate code implementations for the extant partner related
initiatives.

------
d0m
I'd be curious to know how many people would need to use such a service for
the ad maker to make the same amount of money. Basically, what I'm wondering
is if it would be similar to Wikipedia where a very few percentage of people
need to contribute for the system to work out?

------
cygnus
I can't help myself but when I read "pure" somewhere, it smells marketing
bullshit scam.

------
mankins
Atri ([http://www.atri.me](http://www.atri.me)) does just this, but bypasses
the sites and uses the Twitter Handles on the page as the creator of record.

------
known
Interesting concept

------
benbristow
But Adblock is free. Wouldn't a simple donate button be just as effective?

~~~
freitasm
Donate buttons are a joke. They don't work for publishers at all.

------
tacos
I would happily pay an extra $5 a month to my ISP to have them allocate it to
the pages I visit. More if they let me select a subset.

~~~
mtgx
You actually want the ISPs, some of the most hated companies in the country,
to "fairly distribute" that money for you?

~~~
tacos
I have an account with them. And they're already doing it for my TV channels.

They're also providing a reliable 100Mbps link 4 miles from the nearest sewer
pipe. Seems like they could handle 50 lines of code to parse logs and disburse
payments.

------
imglorp
I keep waiting for some serious content creator to try a bitcoin micropayment
system. From there it's a small stretch to envision a third party like this
one to take care of SSO and varying pay rates per provider.

~~~
madeofpalk
Why bitcoin?

Why not 'regular money' that more people have?

~~~
lojack
It's easy to charge 5 cents to read an article using Bitcoin. With processing
fees, this isn't super easy using credit cards.

~~~
computer
Look up the current fees for bitcoin transactions; they're more expensive.
Also much slower.

~~~
forgotpwtomain
Yeah, but I think that largely depends on the degree of security you want to
have in your blockchain. For example you could use something of a multi-party
signing-scheme for consensus that regularly stamps hashes of it's own table
into the bitcoin blockchain - this kind of scheme would be significantly less
expensive to implement since you could pack thousands of transactions into a
single bitcoin transaction. I'm not really sure micro-payments are the answer
to add blocking to begin with though -

~~~
goldenkey
Are you kidding me? You have no idea what you are talking about. The bitcoin
transaction has to come from the sender. You are dreaming

~~~
mpeg
You can have multiple inputs / outputs per bitcoin transaction, so presumably
that's what he's talking about.

~~~
forgotpwtomain
> You can have multiple inputs / outputs per bitcoin transaction, so
> presumably that's what he's talking about.

Actually that's not it. What I'm saying is that you can have any normal multi-
party signature scheme, where every N signing-rounds you ensure some measure
of canonical ordering by publishing the hash in the bitcoin blockchain. I
think sidechains are probably formulated in a similar fashion but it's been a
while since I've looked at exactly what they are doing, the trickier parts if
I remember correctly are transfers of value on and off the original chain.

