> "It enables micropayments directly in the HTTP layer"
VERY cool! This is the perfect use of micropayments that far exceeds that of traditional fiat and credit vehicles.
VERY cool! This is the perfect use of micropayments that far exceeds that of traditional fiat and credit vehicles.
It's not just a payment mechanism, it's a new primitive for HTTP itself. The protocol already has a 402 status code that's been sitting unused since 1991. Lightning makes it finally usable.
The interesting implication for AI agents: they can acquire access to resources autonomously, without any human provisioning a credential. The agent just pays. That changes how you architect systems that need to consume external data or services.
Still early.. most developers haven't seen a 402 response in production before. But the primitives are all there now.