Journey into Web Monetization - day 2

After yesterdays ideas I couldn't decide which one to pursue. I realized I needed a better and deeper understanding of how it works.

Here's what I found out:

• WebMonetization (WM) is both push- and pull-based payments. So instead of you push payment from your credit-card you can have websites pull money from your wallet.
• Users need wallets. Right now there are only a few options: Coil, Xpring, Stronghold, GateHub and XrpTipbot. No native browser support, only Coil extension.
• Payment pointers are urls to wallets ($ instead of https://)
• Privacy focused not to leak personal data
• OpenPayments is a specification similar to OAuth2 in how wallets should work (API endpoints, .well-know/open-payments manifest etc).

{  "issuer": "https://wallet.example",  "authorization_issuer": "https://auth.wallet.example",  "authorization_endpoint": "https://auth.wallet.example/authorize",  "invoices_endpoint": "https://wallet.example/invoices",  "mandates_endpoint": "https://wallet.example/mandates",  "assets_supported": [    {"code": "USD", "scale": 2},    {"code": "EUR", "scale": 2}  ]}

• When a wallet receive a request from a client (GET $wallet.example/alice) it connects to the ILP network and returns STREAM credentials:

{  "ilpAddress": "example.ilpdemo.red.bob",  "sharedSecret": "6jR5iNIVRvqeasJeCty6C+YB5X9FhSOUPCL/5nha5Vs="}

• These credentials are used to start the STREAM (Interledger transport protocol)
• "Similar to how the Internet routes packets information, Interledger routes packets of value"
• Other names for wallets (SPSP server/client, WM receiver/sender (or provider), acquirer/issuer)
• You can set sendMax on clients and receiveMax on servers to end the stream and connection when these are reached.
• Right now the eco-system is limited to XRP and USD.
• Connectors can be (has been?) built to connect to other ledgers (ETH, BTC etc)

I found these links helpful:

• https://interledger.org/overview.html
• https://docs.openpayments.dev/web-monetization
• https://webmonetization.org/docs/explainer#flow-overview

It's quite a lot to take in.

• As a developer it's quite difficult to know where to get started.
• As a user it should be easier for me to set up a new wallet and use in my browsers
• As a creator it should be easy to publish new content with payment pointers, both on established platforms as well as self-hosted

How could one help reduce the friction for users to start using these technologies?

• How to make it easier for content creators to create a wallet and get a payment pointer?
• How to make it easier for developers to start building with these technologies?
• How to make it easier for users to access paid content?