We replaced user accounts with Lightning payments for identity

blog.satsrail.com

4 points·keymaker_p··3 comments

Many of the big platforms and their behaviour might validate the point the article makes about an account being used to monitize users further. But me writing a comment here on Hacker News using an account and being able to access this and many other articles freely shows that better models are possible.

Access to information and discussion should not only be accessible to those who can pay for it piece by piece. The advertising based model has huge problems and might be at the end, but I hope other alternatives persist.

You're right — this isn't for everything. HN itself is a great example of accounts done well. The post argues that for certain interactions — watching a video, commenting on a photo — an account is overhead. A micropayment proves there was a view, which is all a comment needs to be valid. We actually have a login in our demo too. The point isn't "accounts are evil," it's that they shouldn't be required when payment alone carries enough signal.

Fair point. There are certainly cases where that is the better model.

HN and others als show that an account is not needed to recommend good content by using the voting system. But in my opinion the article frames personalized recommendation systems tied to an account, like on Netflix, too negative. I and persumably many others enjoy that it knows what I like and surfaces similar content.

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