[andy_xor_andrew]

> x402 is an open, neutral standard for Internet-native payments. It lets anyone on the Internet easily charge, and any client pay on-demand, on a pay-per-use basis. A client, such as an agent, sends a HTTP request and receives a HTTP 402 Payment Required status code. In response, the client pays for access on-demand, and the server can let the client through to the requested content.

Fascinating. Cloudflare is envisioning a future where agents are given debit cards by their owners, so they can autonomously send microtransactions to website owners to scrape content or possibly purchase goods on the owner's behalf. I don't know how I feel about that but there's no doubt it's a fascinating concept.

Brb, setting up a honeypot that always responds with HTTP 402 Payment Required demanding 10cents per visit... That's the next "selling 1 million pixels on my website for $1 each", I guess

[danudey]

If you can find a way to trick agents into always accepting your payment required then you could set up a tarpit generating trash content or an infinite string of redirects or "read this other page for more info", charging extra for each one.

[TiredOfLife]

So exactly like it is and has been for decades but instead of ads its micropayments

[myhf]

> you could set up a tarpit generating trash content

and you could call it "EmDash"

[NBJack]

To be frank, I thought this was an elaborate April Fool's joke, particularly when I saw that. It suggested to me 'you could charge for anything' while subtly implying you should also be paying them (within a handy deploy button every few paragraphs) for the privilege of running their stuff on their hosting solution.

I suppose this is the world we live in.

[akktor]

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/...

[nonameiguess]

It's like the exploit from Office Space is finally legal.

[dotandimet]

Looking into x402, and this is more about giving your agent a crypto wallet rather than a debit card.

[ipadbabycc]

> I don't know how I feel about that

Oh dont worry, I'll do the feelings for the both of us, I have over a decade of experience feeling smugly and validatingly superior to people who save payment info on ipads and then hand it to their kids.

[sunaookami]

It's naive, nobody will pay, especially not AI companies.