TL;DR detect donation options on a website, track website visits locally, show a monthly view of websites visited monthly with donation options, donate to your favorites (manually at first, automatically later - never worked in banking)

Intro

I’m sure a fair number read “monetisation” and though “that’s ads”. No. You’ve been conditioned to think that ads are the only way. They aren’t. They are one of the worst.

Unfortunately, that’s what many media creators, artists, writers, software developers, etc. assume. Peertube isn’t a viable platform for creators because viewers have a lot of friction to give the creator money. Meanwhile, on platforms like youtube, all they have to do is view the video and everything else happens in the background.

What if we, the viewers, had an easier way to donate.

The optimal (my dream)

  • I install software and give it access to my bank account (my bank supports creating many sub accounts)
  • the software tracks the usage of the things I use, the pages I visit, the videos (and their creators) that I watch, the artists I listen to, the newspapers I read, the blogs I read, the forums I interact with, etc.
  • at the end of each month, I transfer %money to my sub account (automatic transfer)
  • the software is notified and %money is distributed, with an algorithm of my choosing, using the donation gateways of the stuff I consumed

This can all be done locally, without a server, and if need be stored per device, then aggregated via a local sync (WiFi, bluetooth, VPN, …). Everything stays local, the bank just sees your outgoing transactions. Optimally, it would be with a private method of transferring money e.g Monero or GNU Taler.

Distribution examples

  • top X - equal split
  • weighted split (#1 - 50%, #2 - 30%, #3 20%)
  • exponential decay (halve until minimum is reached, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, …)
  • linear decay (remove fixed amount until nothing is left, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10)
  • winner takes all (#1 get all the money)
  • weighted split + base ( base = 10, #1 +20, #2 +15, …)

Reality

  • Tracking everything is difficult but website visits are easy with an extension
  • I’ve never worked with banking and have no idea how to connect to bank account (open banking?)

Tracking

These have their advantages and disadvantages, but together, they could cover most scenarios.

  • Peertube for example could add tags and provide a file on the server for information about donating to the server operator.
  • Lemmy could add tags to <head> for people who have created the thread.
  • People who use managed services but control the content can put donation links in the <body>. These are the most at risk though as it’s possible that managed service operators inject whatever they like into the traffic.

Reading the DOM

  1. find OpenGraph declarations <meta property="og:donation" content="https://wero.eu/example" />
  2. find payment provider links document.querySelector("a").filter(isPaymentProvider)

Querying the server

.well-known/donation servers should put that file there with a documented JSON format

Reading queries

Look for custom headers e.g X-Donation: https://wero.eu/example

Payments

If I’m not mistaken, GNU Taler should have an API that allows connecting to an account, but it only has a testnet. Paying with crypto probably needs a server or something where you host your wallet, but it should be possible. Open Banking, after having a quick look requires some kind of registration to be able to access the API. IMO, nobody’s going to hand over details like that unless it’s considered normal and we’re far away from that.

Therefore, the most likely is that the user will simply be presented with the algorithms to distribute money, the amounts to distribute, and the distribution methods. My best guess is that people get a quarterly, semesterly, or annual notification with the “It’s time to donate!” window and they figure it out.

Ups and downs

Advantages

  • It’s completely local - nobody but you does the tracking, can analyse it, and use it
  • You decide how you want to distribute the money
  • You decide how much
  • You decide the frequency
  • You don’t have to trust me with your money
    • I don’t have to take a cut
    • I don’t have to setup a company to handle your money
    • You don’t have to trust that I transfer the money to those who have earned it
  • Operators have options:
    • Do nothing aka continue as before with existing donation options (wero, paypal, direct bank transfer, crypto, whatever)
    • Add a <meta> tag which gives power to the operator to dynamically generate it (as described before)
    • Make it work with static pages using .well-known/donations

Disadvantages

  • Users currently will have to make the transfers themselves
  • Transfers reveal who you’re donating to to banks (no third-party intermediary)
  • Changes will be required by server operators or software developers
  • No security review done yet
    • Other extensions messing with <meta> tags
    • Other extensions messing with web traffic to insert HTTP headers
    • Server operators modifying HTTP headers and web content of their customers to replace donation targets
    • Malicious server operators tracking users that call .well-known/donations
    • Whatever else people come up with

I’m curious about constructive criticism, improvement suggestions, or maybe even links to dispell some of my beliefs about Open Banking.

Previous inspiration

flattr was a micro transaction platform that supposedly did something like this, but it never gained steam. They acted as the tracker and distributor, but it required that server operators also register with flattr.

  • Dave@lemmy.nz
    2·
    14 hours ago

    Ah yes, I guess it was Flattr! I read the top of the above linked wikipedia page and it talked about visiting pages with a browser extension, which didn’t sound right. But I see now in the history section it has:

    Its first version required users to click on a “flattr” button on websites to “flattr” content.

    So I guess I was in early!