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by imiric 870 days ago
> Maybe browser vendors could come up with a standard where you can "charge up" your account like a prepaid phone card

This will, sadly, never happen. When an adtech giant controls not only the world's most popular web browser, but also has major power in directing the future of the web itself, there's no scenario where they would voluntarily align against their own business interests.

Brave actually has a browser that does what you say, but it will never gain major adoption, either from web users or sites. Course correction of a ship that has sailed long ago, and is run by people who benefit from its current direction, will never happen.
2 comments
luhn 870 days ago
Presumably the browser would take a fee for facilitating the transaction, which could replace any lost ad revenue.

And imo most websites would double dip: Have paid content and advertising. You already see that for online newspaper/magazine subscriptions. If Google is on both sides of that, that's extra revenue for them.

I agree that it'll never happen, but moreso because a lack imagination and willpower from Google.

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bee_rider 870 days ago
It isn’t that surprising that Google isn’t bringing us to the post-ad web, but I’m surprised Apple isn’t. The idea of an app or something asking the OS for a payment, and then the user trusting the OS to handle the details behind the scenes is already conventional on iOS, right?

They already have a nice way of doing subscriptions to podcasts too. So it isn’t like Apple is totally allergic to giving content providers with a way to offer their users premium services. It just hasn’t happened for websites for some reason.

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efitz 870 days ago
The problem is while credit card processors want 2-4% with a minimum, Apple and Google would want 30% - their App Store rates. So expecting Apple to do it is a nonstarter.
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bee_rider 870 days ago
I’m not sure that is the problem really. 70% of something is still better than 100% of nothing after all.

Something that looks a lot more compelling which came up in some comments here is that KYC regulations can be a headache for payment processors. Maybe nobody wants to deal with them for the not-so-lucrative 10c per website view market.

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