Why Micropayments? The Internet Was Meant To Provide Value To Users, Not Spy On Them

Bitcoin Magazine

Why Micropayments? The Internet Was Meant To Provide Value To Users, Not Spy On Them

This is the first in a 10-episode video series focusing on Bitcoin privacy, filmed at bitcoin++ Privacy Edition in Riga and elsewhere. Each episode will touch on some aspect of Bitcoin privacy, tools to use Bitcoin privately or surveillance techniques.

Privacy is heads, censorship resistance is tails. They’re two sides of the same coin. 

Everything people do together is inherently interactive. When those interactions cannot be conducted privately, when they become common public knowledge, the participants can be subjected to external pressure. They can be shunned, shamed, jailed or penalized in many other ways. 

Without privacy, you have no censorship resistance. Without privacy, most people will censor themselves. 

In this second episode, I sit down with Calle, the creator the Cashu ecash protocol, to discuss the loss of privacy on the modern internet. In an era where large internet platforms are accessible for free, the real cost of these platform is paid for by sacrificing your privacy in the name of advertising revenue.

This economic model of the internet is a wild departure from the original vision of users paying for accessing to resources. The “402 Payment Required” error message was a part of the HTTP protocol from the very start.

We discuss how Cashu as a vehicle for bitcoin micropayments offers a chance to turn things around, and build the privacy respecting internet the early designs of the world wide web envisioned to begin with.

Watch the talk below:

This post Why Micropayments? The Internet Was Meant To Provide Value To Users, Not Spy On Them first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Shinobi.