The browser is control various resources. Some are common with other applications, for example memory and power consumption, while others are more specific to browsers, like internet bandwidth. Web monetization aims to be a web standard to control money, possibly without human interaction.

What is new?

Zero-cost micro payments and what ever you can imagine doing with them.

In particular, this opens the possibility to:

  • A new revenue model for the web (not necessarily through ads)
  • Real-time premium model
  • Getting paid as you browse

What was there before?

Other than ads and subscriptions, there is Flattr. Flattr saves your history during a month and distributes your money pool accordingly among the visited websites (by time spent on them).

What is not addressed?

Attention-based model is still the main driver of money: the more time you spent in my website, the more money I get. If you have new ideas, please share them!

Details

The current components are:

  • Network: (how payments are done?)
  • Provider: (who controls the money?)

Interledger

The Interledger Foundation is a non-profit advocate for the web, promoting innovation, creativity, and inclusion by advancing open payment standards and technologies that seamlessly connect our global society.

For now, micro-payments are only used to pay websites. Rafiki, see main post, extends this to receiving payments too.

Some thoughts

The whole ecosystem is quite young, but eager to propose a different way to think about money (or value rewards) on the browser. Let us try something new!

Resources

If you want to dive deep into the topic, try experimenting with some of these:

  • Get started from Interledger
    • https://interledger.org/developer-tools/get-started/overview/