Intent to Prototype: Web Monetization

[Alexander Surkov]

Contact emails

asu...@igalia.com

Explainer

https://webmonetization.org/docs

High Level Overview

High Level Web Monetization Overview

Specification

https://webmonetization.org/specification/

Summary

Implement the Web Monetization spec. Web Monetization is a web technology that enables website owners to receive micro payments from users as they interact with their content. It provides a way for content creators and website owners to be compensated for their work without relying solely on ads or subscriptions. Notably, Web Monetization offers two unique features—small payments and no user interaction—users are paying/tipping for the content while they consume it. It extends the HTML <link> element by introducing rel="monetization". When this element is incorporated into a web page, it signifies the website's support for web monetization. If a user has their wallet set up for a particular website, their browser will automatically start a web monetization session, enabling direct payments from the user to the website.

Blink component

Blink>Payments

Motivation

Web monetization offers a new revenue model for content creators and website owners, allowing them to earn from their work while users consume their content. It also facilitates voluntary user contributions, such as tips, directly rewarding the creators for the value their content provides.

Initial public proposal

None

TAG review

None

TAG review status

Pending

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

None

Gecko: No signal

WebKit: No signal

Web developers: a fraction of a percent of all web pages have already been configured to use the feature in anticipation of web/browser support, according to metrics. There used to be a different way to set up web monetization on a web site by using HTML:meta tag, which achieved 0.03% adoption on the web. 

Other signals:

WebView application risks

Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?

None

Debuggability

None

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests?

No

Flag name on chrome://flags

WebMonetization in runtime_enabled_features.json5.

Finch feature name

None

Non-finch justification

None

Requires code in //chrome?

False

Estimated milestones

M127

Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status

https://chromestatus.com/feature/4917148755689472

This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status.

[Yoav Weiss (@Shopify)]

+Stephen McGruer - FYI

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "blink-dev" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to blink-dev+...@chromium.org.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/d91487a5-108c-46e7-accd-d44b734a0b34%40igalia.com.

[Stephen Mcgruer]

Thanks Yoav! We have been working with Alex and Igalia on this experiment, but appreciate the tag anyway (cc @Rouslan Solomakhin too)

[Rick Byers]

+1. I'm also supportive of prototyping this work. It's obviously a really tricky space, and it's not at all clear yet what would have to be true for us to ship a feature like this in Chrome. But supporting content creators is so important to Chromium's goals of a thriving web that I think we should encourage and support experimentation here. 0.03% of Chrome page loads already having the web monetization tag (despite no mainstream browser support) seems like a very positive sign to me, that's a huge amount of web browsing.

Rick

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CADY3MaeTmpf1T96vDmsA7HJxDY%2BXaijps%3Djiyo2qSOwwZd7nrQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Thomas Steiner]

Hey Alexander,

Is there anything you could share about the outcome of this experimental prototype? 

Thanks,

Tom

[Alexander Surkov]

Hey! I realized I mistakenly replied to Tom privately instead of sending my response to the list. In my reply, I said that the prototype is currently in active development, but we plan to move to testing and seek broader public feedback by the end of this year.

I also hope to share the architecture document in the coming days, which will provide more details about the project implementation plans.

Thanks!

Alexander.