Ad networks using Bitcoin/LN? \ stacker news ~bitcoin

981 sats \ 7 comments \ @SpaceHodler 27 Jul 2023 bitcoin

There has been a lot of discussion how voluntary donations over LN (zaps, tips) are the new economic model for monetizing content vs the old, paywall model.

But most internet content is still monetized through ad programs showing ads on web pages, like e.g. Google AdSense. Also, people may not be willing to part with their sats to tip the author just like they're not keen on buying a subscription with a credit card; the reduced friction at the payment level helps, but may not be enough.

Perhaps an ad program, where both the advertisers and the publishers pay with sats could fill that gap and complement the tipping model. And it would be relatively frictionless, as the consumer of the content wouldn't have to pay anything or set up a wallet, they'd just see ads like they currently do and wouldn't even know it's running on Bitcoin. A potential great boost to adoption.

Another benefit is the censorship resistance (against censorship at both state and platform level) and the circumvention of all the legal BS, as there is no need for a bank account and therefore no need for a registered entity, compliance, KYC etc. Especially if it's fully decentralized. Ad marketplaces could even run on Nostr.

And no intermediary to pay a cut to. With the fine granularity that sats afford, the barrier to entry would also go down.

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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @kr 27 Jul 2023

this isn’t exactly what you’re describing, but check out Slice if you haven’t already.

it shows you ads while you browse and pays you for viewing them. the payment technically occurs via their proprietary “Slices” (which are denominated in dollars), but anyone can withdraw their earnings as sats on Lightning.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @deleted231216 28 Jul 2023

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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @TheBTCManual 27 Jul 2023

A.Ads pays in Bitcoin but their inventory is trash and will take forever to pay you, slice as Kr mentioned is another network trying to offer payment back to users.

The issue with LN is how do you stop click fraud, you can destroy my budget in seconds if its clearing instantly, there would need to be a way to identify traffic and clicks as "authentic" either that is a custodian who would escrow the funds and release after clicks meet a certain criteria

I've been in the programmatic space for some time, done direct deals, I do think Bitcoin is a better payment settlement network, and it's very easy to use something like DFP or another ad management service, the problem is we don't yet have a marketplace where buyers and sellers can meet and agree on a CPM or CPC,

Google does this through its internal auctions, and 3rd party networks do deals with sites to buy bulk inventory

If someone were to build an ad marketplace on nostr I think that could be ground zero

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SpaceHodler OP 28 Jul 2023

It doesn't have to clear instantly. It could work the same as the existing ad programs, but with BTC instead of fiat. I mentioned LN not because of the need for instant payments, but because the base layer doesn't scale and as Bitcoin use grows, most applications will move over to LN eventually, even for transactions in the thousands of $.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @beorange 27 Jul 2023

I find the paywall model using LN a very good solution. Much better than the traditional paywall implementations and than any model based on ads.

The flow is simple:

User accesses the content.
User is able to see a snippet.
User is shown a lightning invoice (QR) to access the rest.
User pays the invoice (a few sats perhaps)
User sees the rest of the content.

This has the following advantages:

Is very fast
Is very convenient
Is anonymous
Doesn't require intermediaries
The user is the client (not the product)
The screen is not polluted with useless ads.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @netstatic 27 Jul 2023

Have you taken a look at zapvertising?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SpaceHodler OP 28 Jul 2023

Thanks, I'll take a look!