![\"Hoard](\"0165c0a412da.jpg\")
TL;DR: Wherein I write a web sci-fi story about how I imagine micropayments\ncould work.
\n\n\n\n\n
For more context, this is kind of a response to David Humphrey's \"402:\nPayment Required\" and Joel Dueck's \"Payment Required\".
\nThanks to @alexandrarchivy,\n@jm3, @humphd,\n@joeld for taking early peeks at this.
\nIf anything still sounds dumb, it's totally my fault.
\nThe year is 2020. The consumer revolt against tracking & advertising on the web\nis here to stay.
\nThe fallout has been brutal: Every \"one weird trick\" and\n\"you'll never believe\" viral headline site has evaporated. Nine out of ten\ndaily news sites across all topics & interests have gone under or consolidated.\nA few favorites have gotten by on a surprise surge of \"premium\" memberships,\nbut it's a lot quieter on what's left of the web.
\nOut of nowhere, a new startup bursts onto the scene:\n\"Catbear... The browser so great, we're going to let you pay for\nit!\"
\nCatbear launches as a subscription service. Five bucks a month in the US - $50 for\na year and save! It comes with a wallet you can fill with Catbearcoins. A $5\nsubscription gives you 1000 Catbearcoins each month.
\nAt Christmas, you get a card from a relative you haven't seen in a few years. A\ngift card falls out - it's worth 2500 Catbearcoins.
\n\"What's this crap?\" you think.\nCurious, you go on the web to redeem it. It turns out you can get\na month of Catbear for 2000 Catbearcoins. You shrug & sign up.
\nCatbear is nice. It's fast. It has clever features. After a night of\npoking around blogs & games & baby animal pictures, you notice the Catbearcoin balance in\nthe corner of the screen has ticked down to 450.
\nYou follow another link and the balance drops to 449.
\nAfter a couple of weeks, your balance runs out. The next link shows\nan annoying warning: \"This page costs 1 Catbearcoin to view,\" along with a\nlink to top up your wallet at the Catbearstore.
\nYou ignore it and keep browsing on\nto other free sites - those are getting harder to find.
\nBy the end of the month, Catbear just stops working. It shows a form to\nreactivate your subscription.
\nYou go back to your old copy of Lodestone Navigator. But, every site\nwants Catbearcoin now. You bite the bullet: You pull out a credit card and\nstart a Catbear subscription.
\nThings are good again. The monthly allowance of 1000 Catbearcoins feeds\nyour habits. But, you've noticed a few places have started asking for\nmore.
\nYour favorite beer homebrewing forum asks you to bump up to 2 Catbearcoins per\nview. In exchange, you get a gold border around on your avatar and you can use\nsome fun emoticons in posts. Feeling magnanimous, you agree.
\nAn arcade site asks 50 Catbearcoins to unlock every game for a few hours. The place\nis pretty fun, so you splurge some nights.
\nYou find a weekly podcast that's 150 Catbearcoins per episode - or 500 per month to\nsubscribe. After listening to some free samples from the archives, you're\nhooked.
\nSoon, you find your wallet running out early. You bump\nyour subscription up to $10 and get 2500 Catbearcoins every month. But, with so\nmuch good stuff out there, you start using up even that allowance. There are\nstill higher subscription levels, but you decide something's got to give.
\nThe easiest thing to do is just deal with it - when the wallet's empty, you\ndo without the web. You make an effort to budget. But, that's\nno fun after a few weeks. So, you look into more options.
\nTurns out you can opt into ads to earn Catbearcoin. You don't like\nthe sound of that, but you give it a try - you can always turn it off\nwhenever you want.
\nIt's not like the old days, though: Ads aren't plastered all over. Instead,\nCatbear shows you something every now and then between links. Usually it's a\nquick interstitial image with some text. Occasionally it's a video. Sometimes\nit's a survey or even a puzzle.
\nYou're surprised at how little you're annoyed -\nand how often you actually engage. There are other ad services to\ntry: They offer higher payouts, but they feel too intrusive for your tastes.
\nBy the end of the month, you've gotten an extra 750 Catbearcoins. Not terrible, but\nyou keep looking around.
\nLots of your usual haunts have started offering some kind of payback scheme for\ntaking on odd jobs. On the homebrewing forum, you notice folks pitching in to\nhelp run the place. You can earn Catbearcoin for moderating discussions and weeding\nout spam.
\nYou apply & get approved - you now have an even more special border around your\navatar and you help douse flame wars in a few topics. This nets you about 200\nCatbearcoins - plenty to offset your use of this particular site.
\nYou find yourself writing long reviews & how-tos on the\nforums. One day, someone snarks that you should start a blog if you're going to\nkeep posting walls of text.
\nIt gets you thinking. You had a TumblJournal, like 10 years ago. You just used it for\nrandom GIFs and general life complaints. After a bit of research, you find\nNileMart's web services: They support blogs and just started accepting Catbearcoin to\npay for hosting. What's even more interesting is that they let you accept Catbearcoin!
\nSo, you pick a clever name & create a site. Whenever you're tempted to post a\nfew paragraphs on the forum, you publish to your blog instead and link to it\nwith a TL;DR summary. Come to find out, you really like writing.
\nEven better, folks from the forums - and beyond - like reading what you've got\nto say about weird & exotic beers and how to brew them. Word spreads. While\nNileMart takes a cut of the Catbearcoin flowing your way, you're surprised to find\nthat your balance grows every month.
\nBy the end of summer, you stop paying cash for your Catbear subscription.
\nYou've even totally covered your web habits with plenty left over.
\nSomeone on the forums snarks that you must be rolling in it now, thanks to all\nyour fans.
\nYou'd read about it awhile back, but totally forgot until just now:\nCatbearcoin can be redeemed for cash. In fact, as kind of a reverse subscription,\nyou can have an amount deducted every month and deposited directly into your\nbank account. So, you set that up.
\nBy the end of the year, your earnings get to a point where you actually have to\ndeclare them on your taxes.
\nYou're far from quitting your day job, but your\nblog buys you a lot of nice beer and a great splurgy dinner here & there.
\nAll of which, you know, is technically research for more writing.
\nSocial media becomes a thing again: It had mostly died when companies &\ninvestors realized ad money was drying up.
\nBut, with the advent of Catbearcoin,\nsomeone comes up with the idea to share revenues with folks posting\nlittle quips & videos. For most users, it's like any old chat site.
\nFor a group of popular folks, the pay out overtakes\nwhat they pay in - and suddenly a few stars are making a living from their\nfans.
\nYou're nowhere near that yourself, but it's good for driving traffic to\nyour blog.
\nAnd of course, Catbearcoin isn't the only game in town for long: Gahoo revives\nthe Lodestone Navigator team and unveils their own subscription-free currency. Allen &\nGates and Pomegranate both unveil their own browser refreshes & currency\nofferings. The browser wars start all over again - this time with even banks &\ncredit card networks jumping into the game.
\nYour cousin is a web developer. She grouses constantly about having to\nsupport all these browsers. But, she's never been so in demand.
\nExchange services pop up to trade currency between browser wallets. You make\na small profit by playing the markets, but you decide it's not really your thing.
\nFraud & scams grow - you get bitten more than once. But, Catbear & Lodestone &\nSojourn & Trident are all in a race for user protections and offer generous\nrefunds, so it's never really a big problem for you. It's a little annoying to\nkeep up to date with the tech on your site, but NileMart mostly just takes care\nof it as part of the hosting package.
\nAfter a few years, it feels like another dot-com boom - just with fewer\nbillionaires and many more hundred-thousand-aires. Armchair analysts everywhere\nenjoy the earnings as they weigh in with opinion pieces about when the bubble's\ngoing to burst.
\nYou keep writing for your blog. Your traffic grows as you diversify\ninto other beverages & food. You really do quit your day job.
\nYou bring in guest writers - with revenue sharing, of course. They become\npermanent staff.
\nYou find yourself traveling a bit for exclusive interviews with up-and-coming\nmicrobrewers & restaurateurs.
\nYou adopt a cat with huge ears and name her Foxy. She's cute and has her own\nhilarious microblog - ghostwritten by you. It pays for her kibble.
\nLife is pretty good on the paid web, even for pets.
\n", "body": "TL;DR: Wherein I write a web sci-fi story about how I imagine micropayments\ncould work.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*For more context, this is kind of a response to [David Humphrey's \"402:\nPayment Required\"][humphd] and [Joel Dueck's \"Payment Required\"][joel].*\n\n*Thanks to [@alexandrarchivy](https://twitter.com/alexandrarchivy),\n[@jm3](https://twitter.com/jm3), [@humphd](https://twitter.com/humphd),\n[@joeld](https://twitter.com/joeld) for taking early peeks at this.*\n\n*If anything still sounds dumb, it's totally my fault.*\n\n[humphd]: https://medium.com/@humphd/402-payment-required-95bc72f06fcd#.dfdv0t2yb\n[joel]: http://thelocalyarn.com/article/payment-required\n\n## No such thing as a free lunch, anymore\n\nThe year is 2020. The consumer revolt against tracking & advertising on the web\nis here to stay. \n\nThe fallout has been brutal: Every \"one weird trick\" and\n\"you'll never believe\" viral headline site has evaporated. Nine out of ten\ndaily news sites across all topics & interests have gone under or consolidated.\nA few favorites have gotten by on a surprise surge of \"premium\" memberships,\nbut it's a lot quieter on what's left of the web.\n\n