fewsats

I can't wait to see test track's evolution.

What is the countdown for the missions?

Yes, but there is a "free lunch" problem. I can run a script that hits your page costing you X at a fraction of the cost for me (the user)

*Edit: typo

The other obvious solution is a "web of trust" where Cloudflare just tells you "this request goes in, this one goes out".

I think the paying approach is superior (after all you make money out of people using your service) but Cloudflare is a straight forward/simpler one.

I've talked with tons of publishers and all say the same thing:

"Hey, we'd happily give these companies clean data if they just paid us instead of building these scrapers."

I think there is a psychological aspect that made micropayments never work for humans but machines may be better suited for it.

There's a real economic problem here: when someone scrapes your site, you're literally paying for them to use your stuff. That's messed up (and not sustainable)

It seems like a good fit for micropayments. They never took off with people but machines may be better suited for them.

L402 can help here.

https://l402.org

With a new protocol, AI agents can now autonomously discover and integrate with services in real time. No prior setup or manual intervention is required, making it easier for agents to access and use third-party tools, services, and APIs. This development marks a key step toward a more seamless, machine-friendly digital ecosystem.

> I don't think creators or consumers want to use Bitcoin. That's right.

> Consumers also want to pay in local currency. Taproot Assets will bridge this.

In Fewsats for example the user prices the services and gets the payouts in $ by default.

The L402 protocol has a new dedicated page aimed at spreading awareness about the protocol and showcasing related tools and services that utilize it.

Built on top of the `HTTP 402 Payment Required` error, L402 brings built-in payments to the HTTP level.

The protocol defines a clear flow for servers and clients to process and verify payments automatically, making it a great solution for machine-to-machine interactions.

L402 is currently being used in production by companies such as Lightning Labs, where it was developed, fewsats.com or sulu.sh.

Addressing some misconceptions from previous Hacker News posts about L402, I would like to clarify two key points:

- L402 is not limited to micropayments. While the Lightning Network supports micropayments, L402 accommodates a wide range of payment types (one time, subscriptions, etc) and amounts, making it suitable for various use cases.

- The L402 flow is designed to be credential and payment agnostic. Although the current specification utilizes macaroons and Lightning invoices, any type of credential that can be linked to a challenge, and any challenge that delivers a proof of completion, can be used. This flexibility allows for the use of various mechanisms, from proof of work to Stripe returning the preimage of a hash.

At Fewsats, we are building a serverless platform that leverages the L402 protocol for built-in payments. However, we would love to see the ecosystem expand and flourish in various directions, with more developers and companies building upon this tech!