Comment by adrianwaj
1 day ago
Look no further than x402 micropayments as both the solution and opportunity here.
And then a way to return a portion to humans.
These AI companies are loaded too (maybe not the long-tail as yet) and the crypto ecosystem is mature.
Come one, come all. Make money.
Need a Wordpress plugin to start the ball rolling and provide ping endpoints for the AI companies to leach from. They can pay to get those pings too.
Give them what they want and charge them. Lower their costs by making their scraping more efficient.
So your local diner used to have napkin dispensers on every table full of napkins.
Then some people started coming in and just taking all the napkins out when they left the restaurant. Now the diner is going broke paying for napkins so they stop stocking them. Seems like we can't have nice things :(.
But wait! Great solution! We created a micropayment system. Sign up on your phone and use this QR code to pay 1 cent to dispense each napkin. You can also watch a 30 second ad for a free napkin. Napkins are back at the diner, and now they're properly commodified, as indeed everything should be.
--
I don't know about you, but the above scenario doesn't sound like a happy ending to me.
The dispenser should be placed next to the cashier. There could also be a smaller amount in the dispenser in case someone grabs all of them.
The micropayment way is more like a vending machine. The issue is pricing, charge too much and a clone machine will pop up that will be cheaper for the buyer but still make the seller money. Charge too little -- well you'd still be making more than now but there could be a lot of money left on the table.
I actually think payments should be variable. People on this thread rant about having a designated way to allow for a big download, how about a designated way to make a payment (even if voluntary) ?
x402.txt / crypto.txt / coins.txt / authors.txt / tips.txt / supporters.txt
Then give people a way to "show off their generosity."