In August 2019 we proposed a new declarative API for websites to earn money from users which we call Web Monetization.
The proposal is now being incubated in the WICG and we’ve built a website to help folks experimenting with the API find tools and guides.
There is also a community developing at community.webmonetization.org with some incredible reports on experiments being done with Web Monetization, many funded by grants from Grant for the Web.
Firefox Implementation
One of these experiments is the integration of the API natively into Firefox by @sidvishnoi a Grant for the Web Technical Scholar kindly mentored by @marcosc on behalf of Mozilla.
@sidvishnoi has produced a build of Firefox Nightly that includes an implementation of the WM API as well as a demo extension that encapsulates the business logic of the user for making payments (i.e. when to pay and how much).
@sidvishnoi describes his approach (vs using a Payment Handler) in his later report.
Unfortunately it will be impossible to test the Payment Handler approach without some of the groundwork @sidvishnoi has done being replicated in Chromium-based browsers (which already support Payment Handlers) or an implementation of the Payment Handler API being done in Firefox.
If there are any browser engineers interested in taking up the challenge of implementing WM in Chromium (or Webkit) I know that there are vendors keen to provide the support and the Grant for the Web Technical Scholars program is open for applicants.
Upcoming Workshop
I’d like to run a workshop soon to discuss some of Sid and other’s findings over the last 18 months of experimentation and plan for an updated version of the API that incorporates these. If you’d like to participate please follow this thread and I’ll share details as they evolve.