Hi all, I am not sure if this is the appropriate category or forum for this question, so apologies in advance. Reading the documentation of Web Monetization Standard, as of today, it is a way for content producers to seamlessly monetize their content via micro payments, no need for a third party to monetize, and lastly no need to monetize via advertisements. I am wondering if in the future the WMS will allow for retail purchases/ point of sale flow. For example I would like to build out a flow where a user purchases an item, and for each transaction the funds get distributed accordingly to the producers of that item.
I can’t speak for Web Monetization, but I contribute to Payment Handler API so can comment on your second question.
Unpacking your question a bit: sounds like you’re looking for a way to have multiple payees for a given payment transaction. It seems to me the missing piece is a mechanism to distribute the payment proceeds according to some weights (e.g. a producer list attached to a product) and this happens after a user has authorized the payment. Since Payment Handler API is a frontend API that allows a payment app (e.g. a digital wallet) to service a payment transaction, it doesn’t solve the backend money distribution problem.
Would you expect the user to be aware of the payment distribution?
If yes, Payment Handler API may play a role: merchant can essentially bundle multiple payment requests together and send it to the payment app. The payment app can return payment tokens for each request that can be processed separately.
If no, it probably makes much less sense for Payment Handler API to get involved, because at this point it’s a fund distribution problem.