Hacker News

Favorites Setup
Comment by thinkloop | original | Monetization Gateway: Charge for any resource behind Cloudflare via x402
[−]thinkloop · 2026-07-02 Thu 02:34 UTC · link
A $1 entry subscription where you have to type your name and credit card and submit and wait and now you have a relationship to manage, is infinitely more expensive than a 10 cent, automatic, non-recurring, one-time, no cancelation needed, pseudonomous, microtransaction.
[−]applfanboysbgon · 2026-07-02 Thu 04:38 UTC · link
> pseudonomous

Which isn't private. Wallet ID 123 buys a 10c article from Leftist Newspaper A and one from Leftist Newspaper B. Leftist Newspaper A and B, being businesses, sell the information that Wallet ID 123 purchased an article to Data Broker A. Data Broker A correlates all purchases Wallet ID 123 has ever made and with a high degree of accuracy identifies who they are and their political affliation. Data Broker A sells this profile to anyone who asks for it, including far right governments who might be interested in throwing people out of helicopters based on their political affiliation. Unless you use Monero, this will happen, and Monero will obviously not be used.

Yes, 90% of people are careless and already give away this information right now. But you're suggesting closing the door on the rest who care to be able to protect themselves while still being able to use the internet, and cementing that nobody will ever have privacy for the rest of their lives, when we should be making an effort to make it harder to identify people, not easier.

[−]skybrian · 2026-07-02 Thu 05:05 UTC · link
Perhaps some kind of mixer could be put in front of the micropayments system.
[−]sanswork · 2026-07-02 Thu 06:20 UTC · link
Right but it means I can go read a bunch of content right away vs microtransactions where literally every click becomes a case of me deciding if it's worth 10c. That is exhausting.

Also if they are handling payments at some point you're going to be forming that relationship or they are going to get shut down for money laundering very quickly.