
Show HN: Adblock to Bitcoin - ksowocki
https://github.com/owocki/adblock-to-bitcoin
======
dheera
If your real objective is to get actually some income in place of the ad, I
would highly suggest supporting traditional forms of payment _in addition to_
Bitcoin. Pick your battles and reduce friction for the user to donate.
Although Bitcoin is interesting/cool/worthy of existence, 99.9% of users don't
have a Bitcoin wallet, so you'll be missing out on a lot of potential income.

~~~
ksowocki
It's worth testing. The reason we started with bitcoin is that traditional
forms of payment charge a egregious fee (credit card, 3%) or require sharing
private information (ACH). With bitcoin, I can send micro-payments trustless-
ly.

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Checkout what Slate.com is doing with their AdBlock mitigation messaging.
They'll detect AdBlock usage and try to upsell you to their Slate+ membership
(yearly credit card fee)

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Yup, lots of sites do that - e.g. theguardian.com. The trouble is that paying
for a yearly subscription is a _whole other_ prospect than paying a cent as a
one-off or even on a per-article basis. Micropayments offer a much nicer
business model, IMO - I am almost never going to pay for a subscription to a
website, but I am totally willing to make one-off donations, and have done so.

~~~
colinbartlett
I would gladly give nytimes.com $0.10 to $1.00 to read individual articles and
probably do it scores of times in a given month.

But I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $455 per year to read all them on any
of my devices:
[http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp5558.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp5558.html)

~~~
schorgie30
Hey Colin,

Cameron Schorg here with SnipBit. We are currently creating a platform exactly
like what you are describing. Users would have a browser extension that allows
them to pay for articles with one click and browse the web a la carte style
-essentially solving the subscription problem and the annoyance of the
paywalls themselves. You should definitely check us out at www.snipbit.io . In
addition, i would love to have a longer chat with you to better understand our
user base. If you would be willing, please reach out to me at
schorgie30@gmail.com!

------
kragen
An interesting issue here is that Creative Commons Noncommercial licenses
permit use on ad-funded sites, but not on micropayment-funded sites. I'm
thinking specifically of this:
[https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/17127](https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/17127)

~~~
xigency
I think the idea of micro-payments instead of ads is that it covers costs. In
that respect, and in general, if the site isn't turning a profit isn't that
still non-commercial?

~~~
Zikes
> if the site isn't turning a profit isn't that still non-commercial?

Wouldn't that mean Twitter and Facebook are non-commercial?

~~~
kragen
If Facebook is commercial, does that make it legal for you to post a CC-NC-BY
document you didn't write as a Facebook Note? If it's legal for you to post
it, is it also legal for Facebook to display it, thus drawing people into
their site to view advertising? What if I set up a paid-subscription-only
Facebook clone called Flone and you post it on Flone, so that you have to pay
Flone to see the Note? Does it matter if Flone charges per pageview instead of
per month? Does it matter if Flone charges more for certain pageviews? When
Verizon sells you a data connection, are they in some way different from our
hypothetical Flone?

------
Sir_Cmpwn
I'd like to see a browser plugin that does something similar. I fill it up
with a small balance of bitcoins, and it automatically pays websites when I
visit.

~~~
eternauta3k
This fits your description

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/protip-peer-to-
pee...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/protip-peer-to-peer-
crowd/obpohohcmdaklmaagjgdaldgjhohegak)

~~~
benten10
This needs to be more common. I'd put in a not unreasonable amount of money
(~20$) monthly to automatically pay to the sites I regularly visit. Need this
for firefox, stat!

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
One thing that prevents me from wanting to use this is that it just looks for
bitcoin addresses on the page. If joe bloe posts on reddit begging for money
with his bitcoin address, I don't want to automagically send him some.

~~~
benten10
I don't really care about the bitcoin TBH. There needs to be a technology to
pay the publishers directly a cut for my '% time viewed', the technology
matters less to me.

Perhaps Google contributor et al. could implement paying publishers based on
'% of total time spent on the site' metric.

------
finnn
Glad to see that blocking 3rd party javascript is still effective at blocking
all of this

[https://i.imgur.com/8LbGk2G.png](https://i.imgur.com/8LbGk2G.png)

~~~
ksowocki
OP here.

Whats your motivation for disabling javascript? I _could_ create a
javascriptless-version of this, but would you ever consider supporting/tipping
a publisher via it?

~~~
finnn
I don't disable javascript. Just Javascript (and most resources) from 3rd
party domains. I didn't come up with the idea, there's a browser plugin
(uMatrix) that does it for me. And I selectively re-enable by domain or
resource type. I like it because (1) it blocks just about every annoyance on
the web and (2) it means that when I visit a webpage, the number of 3rd
parties that the information about my visit is automatically leaked to goes
down. It's like automatic blocking of ads, social buttons and just whatever
new unpleasantry thing comes up next.

For example, this is what uMatrix displays on the demo:

[https://i.imgur.com/0mtkpXY.png](https://i.imgur.com/0mtkpXY.png)

~~~
ksowocki
Interesting tool; I'm going to have to play with have that turned on my
Chromium install.

------
exo762
Nice little project!

The issue is, at this moment Bitcoin does not really support micro-
transactions. There is a proposal in progress which will fix this though. Its
called "Lightning Network" and it will act as aggregator of transactions which
will prevent dust from hitting blockchain while correctly and safely counting
every penny. This is not yet ready - they are working on safe and private
payment routing in network consisting of open set of nodes, which is (IMHO)
crazy hard.

~~~
ksowocki
> The issue is, at this moment Bitcoin does not really support micro-
> transactions.

Whats your source on this? I'd thought that the block size was large enough
that even transactions around the size of $0.05 would go through regularly.

~~~
exo762
I personally use it for amounts starting from 30c.

But two questions should be answered. How micro is micro-payment? Popular fee
right now is at 0.0001 BTC which corresponds to ~0.04USD, which could be
considered not very "micro-fee". And other question. Single transaction real
cost right now is around 10USD. Payment fees are low, only because they are
hugely subsidised by block reward (25BTC every 10 minutes). What will happen
when block reward will go down 2, 4, 8 times?

And finally, quote from LN whitepaper:

> If all transactions using Bitcoin were on the blockchain, to enable 7
> billion people to make two transactions per day, it would require 24GB
> blocks every ten minutes at best

~~~
Nutomic
If the block size is increased, a lot more transactions will fit in a block,
so transactions would get much cheaper.

And while it's a great goal to have all monetary transactions use Bitcoin,
that is very very far from reality for now.

~~~
exo762
I agree. Increasing block size to 4-8 Mb is probably safe. And it would
encourage more adoption. At this moment, unfortunately, confirmation times are
close to unreliable.

------
Sealy
I like what your concept is a lot. I do not think a huge number of payments
are going to be made using it, HOWEVER, I think this is just the beginning of
a much larger movement behind micropayments for ad-free content. I've been
wanting this for a very long time to read good quality articles online that
are behind paywalls. I would totally pay with bitcoin, but refuse to sign up
using any form of credit card.

~~~
ksowocki
> I do not think a huge number of payments are going to be made using it

First, this is an experiment and I'll be testing different permutations of
cost, copy, and invasiveness.

Curious as to why you think there won't be much volume. Could you elaborate?

> I would totally pay with bitcoin, but refuse to sign up using any form of
> credit card.

This is an interesting data point. Was talking to a blogger about this project
this morning and he asked why not use traditional payment methods. I presume
(and hope) there might be more people out there like you than we all think.

~~~
Sealy
> Curious as to why you think there won't be much volume. Could you elaborate?

My reason for this is entirely practical. By displaying a bitcoin payment
address, there are at minimum an additional three or four clicks, with perhaps
a copy and paste of the bitcoin address to complete a payment (this is even
more difficult if the user's bitcoin wallet is on his mobile - unless a QR
code is displayed). For me, it is more of a practical usability reason as
opposed to the reader not wanting to donate their $0.01.

A solution I would love to use, would be to have a browser plugin with a pre
loaded bitcoin balance of a few dollars and a single one click to accept a 1
cent payment to the content owner to proceed to the article.

On Bitcointalk.org, a forum dedicated to bitcoin geeks, people always leave a
tip address in their signatures, look up the usage and you'll find it
surprisingly low.

~~~
ksowocki
> A solution I would love to use, would be to have a browser plugin with a pre
> loaded bitcoin balance of a few dollars and a single one click to accept a 1
> cent payment to the content owner to proceed to the article.

Interesting feedback. Changetip or coinbase could likely provide a one-click
button to tip content providers.

------
tobltobs
This library looks good. But I wouldn't hold my breath that you will get any
donations. I recently created a similar solution and the result after about a
million few was nada, nilch, zero. If you now consider that by accepting
donations you have to solve the EU VATmess it is not worth the effort.

~~~
DennisP
Bitcoin transactions were just ruled exempt from Europe's VAT:
[http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-is-exempt-from-vat-says-
euro...](http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-is-exempt-from-vat-says-european-
court-of-justice/)

That doesn't mean you don't have to pay the VAT just because you buy something
with Bitcoin, it just means that bitcoin/dollar exchanges don't owe tax. I
don't know whether VAT applies to donations.

~~~
tobltobs
The question is not if donations are excempt from vat, but if your tax
collector will believe you that you are a non profit organisation.

~~~
DennisP
So pay taxes on the income, it's still better than not having the income. If
you are attempting nonprofit status, donations are less of a red flag than
advertising.

But I don't see what that has to do with VAT, which you brought up.

------
elmar
The Killer App for Bitcoin :)

~~~
kordless
There are a few of these. :)

~~~
ksowocki
OP here. Big fan of changetip, which is IMHO the first implementation of
cryptocurrency/micropayments that has truly taken off.

------
Skunkleton
I really dig this idea, but would love to see two more features:

1\. Integrate with something like coinbase so that users can fund a wallet
with fiat currency.

2\. Provide a feedback mechanism that shows the payments had a positive
effect. For example, if a GPU review on Anandtech gets lots of tips, Anandtech
could do another GPU review and publish that effect somehow.

I personally have a hard time spending money when the effect of that money
disappears into a black hole. If paying a tip had some sort of feedback, I
would probably do it more often.

~~~
ksowocki
OP here.

> 1\. Integrate with something like coinbase so that users can fund a wallet
> with fiat currency.

Thats a good idea. The QR code gets us close to this implementation, but not
quite all the way there.

> 2\. Provide a feedback mechanism that shows the payments had a positive
> effect.

Yes, THIS. I'd very much like to include feedback into the system (author
name, topic, title, etc) such that publishers know what their audience cares
deeply about (paid for) vs just casually reads (pageview).

> I personally have a hard time spending money when the effect of that money
> disappears into a black hole. If paying a tip had some sort of feedback, I
> would probably do it more often.

Your comment reminds me a lot of tip jars I sometimes see in coffee shops in
NYC. Tip in bucket A for "Star Wars', tip in bucket B for 'Star Trek'. Sort of
a ruse in a way, but the staff gets more tips because they made a game of it.

------
throwaay123
You might also be interested in
[https://github.com/kallerosenbaum/poppoc/wiki/Proof-of-
Payme...](https://github.com/kallerosenbaum/poppoc/wiki/Proof-of-Payment),
which will let you "login" by prooving that you made a small bitcoin
transaction.

The disadvantage of this sort of microtransaction is that people may actually
be willing to pay more through donation then through forced payment.

------
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------
codezero
This is pretty neat, and gives me an idea that I assume someone has already
made.

Do any ad blocking tools aggregate the total estimated amount of ad revenue
that I've prevented across all sites that I block ads on in, say, the past
month, or year?

~~~
ksowocki
Op here.

> Do any ad blocking tools aggregate the total estimated amount of ad revenue
> that I've prevented across all sites that I block ads on in, say, the past
> month, or year?

I'm sure there's a programmatic way of finding that information, but one could
plausibly create a tool that _guesses_ an ad spots CPM and then displays that
information.

------
henningpeters
Looks similar to what you can do with
[https://satoshipay.io](https://satoshipay.io), but they allow even tiniest
Bitcoin payments (down to a single Satoshi) using sidechains.

------
arbabu
I think the basic problem is that people are not going to give you any money
at all! Let it be bitcoin or their dollars. Or if this project works out,
would be pretty interesting!

~~~
ksowocki
Next step in the project is to gather some data to validate the project
thesis. Here's how you can help if you care to be part of the experiment (not
much downside as space is only used when Adblockers are on).
[https://github.com/owocki/adblock-to-bitcoin#how-you-can-
hel...](https://github.com/owocki/adblock-to-bitcoin#how-you-can-help)

------
quantumtremor
[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2490](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2490)

------
Klathmon
This is cool, and it won't pester you about donating if you are using
something like Google Contributor which is nice.

~~~
ksowocki
OP here. Would really like to gather some data about what kind of conversions
this would get on a site with some scale. Thesis is that for brands that have
a loyal following, we might be able to get close to PPC unit economics.

~~~
Klathmon
i havent used bitcoin for years, so excuse me if i'm asking stupid questions,
but how many steps is it to donate from the time i see it to when the money
flows?

Realistically i could only see myself doing this if it was less than 3 clicks
and a grand total of about 30 seconds of time. Any more than that and i'm just
not going to bother if i'm honest.

Also, this might go against what you are trying to do, but would it be
possible to maybe keep a counter of how many of these "ads" were blocked (only
on the client) and maybe update the suggested donation based on that?

I personally might be more willing to donate if i saw "You've blocked 384 ads
on this site" or something like "you've visited this page 26 times over the
last month" and an updated suggested donation to match the usage.

Ninja-edit:

And finally, is there a service that you could work with to allow easy
donations via other currencies and have them auto converted to bitcoin? I
don't have a bitcoin wallet any more, but if there was a button next to the
donate button that took you to a 3rd party website that allowed me to pay in
USD and have it converted to bitcoin and sent to the website I might
contribute.

~~~
ksowocki
> i havent used bitcoin for years, so excuse me if i'm asking stupid
> questions, but how many steps is it to donate from the time i see it to when
> the money flows?

There are no stupid questions, cryptocurrency is not intuitive in many ways :)

Steps on mobile: 1\. Open iPhone / Coinbase app 2\. Scan QR Code 3\. Input
amount 4\. Press send

Similar process on desktop, but probably with a copy/paste code instead of QR
code.

Realistically i could only see myself doing this if it was less than 3 clicks
and a grand total of about 30 seconds of time.

It's definitely less than 30 seconds as long as your iPhone is across the room
and/or you have coinbase.

> Also, this might go against what you are trying to do, but would it be
> possible to maybe keep a counter of how many of these "ads" were blocked
> (only on the client) and maybe update the suggested donation based on that?

Yes, data and testing of conversion percentages and unit economics is going to
be important if this ever takes off.

> I personally might be more willing to donate if i saw "You've blocked 384
> ads on this site" or something like "you've visited this page 26 times over
> the last month" and an updated suggested donation to match the usage.

That's a great idea! I'll have to add this copy to the 'to test' list!

~~~
Ntrails
I'd focus on how much value I've got out of the site (26 visits worth - holy
cow!!11!!!1!) rather than how many god awful adverts I've avoided - which is
more likely to make me woot softly for adblock and move on.

------
4e1a
This does not work for me. I'm using 'ghostery' to block ads though, not 'ad-
block'.

~~~
rogeryu
Well I'm using Privacy Badger. It is not about the used technology. It's about
the idea, the concept. If you don't want to see ads, you pay a small amount
using bitcoins. I don't see it working unless it's forced upon you.

~~~
teps
When I go have a beer in a bar, I often give between 0.2 and 1$ tips. Why?
Because it really easy and require no effort. I would with no hesitation give
0.1$ to a interesting article if it were only one click away. I would easily
give 0.5-1$ after a good episode of a TV show if I only had to do one click.
Yes, that include pirated TV shows.

The problem is that there is no way to easily give a small amount of money to
a content creator on its creations.

~~~
schorgie30
Hey teps, Cameron Schorg with a new startup called SnipBit. We are working on
making a platform very similar to what you talked about. The main difference
is that we would charge for the content on the front end and then offer a
refund option if you didn't like the content. You should check us out at
www.snipbit.io and if you would be willing, I'd would love to have a chat as
we are ALWAYS doing customer discovery (schorgie30@gmail.com).

------
felixangell1024
Really nice idea, might try this out for a project of mine :)

~~~
ksowocki
Please get in touch if you do. I'm @owocki on twitter and need some data to
support what kind of results this gets.

