this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025

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106

Castopod introduces Web Monetization (an ActivityPub tip jar) (podlibre.video)

submitted 20 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 13 hours ago

I'm really supportive of this kind of protocol. I've long advocated for some system that allowed for micro-payments to support websites, both optional and paywall. We've seen what the expectation of having "free" services has gotten us, I'd much prefer to chip in to sites that provide me enjoyment or are informative.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 20 hours ago

I was about to leave a snide "Eww, crypto" comment here, but this "Interledger Protocol" seems like the most good-faith approach to digital currency I've seen yet? I'm not knowledgeable enough to fully understand it, but I hope it will actually turn out to be a good thing.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 20 hours ago

I bounced when they asked for my phone number. I think they should be working to implement Monero instead but this is still a good alternative to PayPal or Stripe.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Looks like it's based on the Web Monetization W3C proposal.

https://webmonetization.org/docs/

Looks neat, ~~though I'm always a little hesitant when the thing involves crypto~~. while Interledger is the main driver of the peer-to-peer payments so far, there is nothing stopping a government or banking service from creating an OpenPayment compatible service, so long run there might be a lot of flexibility and less being tied to a specific cyrpto.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I'm always a little hesitant when the thing involves crypto

There is no crypto.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 18 hours ago

Ah. I think I jumped to assumptions about interledger based on the wallet terminology.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 19 hours ago

I really like this. This is how monetisation should work.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 20 hours ago

Link to extension

[+] [email protected] -13 points 20 hours ago (4 children)

And the enshittification process begins anew.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

A lot of communities on fediverse depends on menetization of their content, like comic artist, illustrator, cosplayer, and so on.

It doesn't really show on Western fediverse, but on Japanese fediverse its really visible.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

My brother in Christ, it's a community built service that runs on donations.

Building infrastructure to process those donations is not "enshitification" 😅

[–] [email protected] 25 points 19 hours ago

Asking for voluntary tips isn't enshittification. It's surviving within the reality of shitty capitalism. I donate to my instance admins, for example, because as much as they probably would love to just run this instance for free, they can't.

This is probably the most ethical way to ensure creators can continue to eat, especially with generative software models able to produce competing garbage in gigantic volumes.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Brother payment transfers have been enshittified for decades.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

I meant specifically for ActivityPub & the Fediverse. Now there's money in it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 hours ago

There has always been money, it's just other people footing the bill for you.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 16 hours ago

There should be some money in it. We want instance Admins to have at least the server hosting covered.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago

How much have you donated to your instance admin since signing up?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Its basically a meta tag that points at a tip jar that's embedded in web pages... This is the same implementation as RSS and only matters to you if you are looking for it or have the ability to act on it.

That means its entirely opt-in and entirely detached from any one company

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

On the one hand, people should be able to make a living.

On the other, places where every Tom, Dick and Harry has their hand out expecting payment for the most inane things (i.e. tipping culture, states where billboards are allowed...) turn pretty crap pretty fast.

Something to remember is that advertising on the internet was a slow-roll at first... until all of a sudden, everyone has ads and popups.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

A valid concern. However, nothing is stopping people from doing the same right now with a big old forced Kofi/patreon/whatever banner, and I'm not sure that this changes that.

The advantage of this over current options is that like RSS, you can consume/deliver it however best suits you without needing to have different accounts of different platforms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I hadn't thought about the Kofi banner thing, and this is anecdotal though my experience, but upon seeing that mentioned my mind immediately jumped to the Steam Workshop; at least with some of the games I play, it's very common to see some form of "Donate".

Setting that aside, the thought occurred to me of somehow tying something we're all used to seeing and interacting with - usernames - into something that if one were so inclined, could interact with somehow to pull up something like a QR code to their "donate box" of choice.

I have no idea how it'd be actually implemented, but it doesn't seem impossible that something like that could allow for both traditional fiat payments, crypto, or even links to "Yoder's Rent-a-goat". I mean, I'd work for a goat as payment, so why not.

QR codes themselves are pretty visually meaningless, and that physical step of the user having to scan it would be that "fully intentional" aspect that'd keep things from being somewhat predatory (thinking in-app payment type stuff).

I have no skin in this game, so just thinking out loud on this, is all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 13 hours ago

Thats absolutely possible via the underlying WebPayments API. The payment "wallet" is linked in the HTML (at least for web pages, RSS, podcast RSS, etc) so someone could design an app that reads these links as QR codes.

The whole point of WebPayments is that and payment solution that you (the "spender") wants to use which is compatible can be used to send money to any compatible wallet.

Whether the payment solution is via government backed, banking systems, or crypto, all it needs to be is compatible.