Micropayments (was Re: UI automation is necessary for accessibility) [LWN.net]

Micropayments (was Re: UI automation is necessary for accessibility)

Posted Jul 13, 2026 23:35 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
In reply to: UI automation is necessary for accessibility by nhippi
Parent article: An update on the scraper situation

I seem to recall, oh, about 2.5 decades ago, that micropayments were being touted as the solution to spam, so much so that they made the FUSSP list.

I suspect micropayments for viewing web pages will be about as successful as micropayments for sending email.

to post comments

Posted Jul 14, 2026 8:00 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

One of the ideas to solve spam was Adam Back's "hashcash". So... yeah.. that just disappeared and went nowhere, and has no relevance at all today.

</sarcasm>

Posted Jul 14, 2026 13:22 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

A proof-of-work system has nothing to do with micropayments that involve actual cash.