A Payment Layer on Gemini? Remember the old web you did have some funky send us checks type of stuff going on that intersected with the web before Musk and Paypal. I remember CGI scripts for processing credit cards, specifically. What do you guys think? Good idea, bad idea? I feel like ads were the bigger ruining factor of the old web...
2025-12-23 · 4 months ago · 🤘 1
36 Comments ↓
It also isn't helping that ads could have a chance of messing up your PC too, which I'm not a fan of. (It's why I use adblock on my laptop, so I won't get jumpscared by some scummy ad.)
It's joyfully uncommercial here... This comes up every now and then, but it seems only a couple of people are interested. Overall probably a bad idea as it would make this place suck like the big web, invite corporate actors and associated bullcrap, etc.
On the positive side, certificates are so much better and safer than what I have to authenticate myself with on the Web when I do any financial transactions! Maybe something like Gemini should in fact be used for financial transactions. TOFU (without a web of trust or some authority) makes it kind of dangerous for anything serious. The whole encryption thing is wasted here on content that no-one would bother tampering with.
[My opinion sounds kind of harsh, but keep in mind that I love this corner of the woods]
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 03:19:
Would it "have" to invite the corporate actors? I am just thinking that for content to have value, money enters into the consideration in that money buys time to work on some things, and not others. It might be that more "quality" content would flood into gemini. I'm not sure. I get your opinion, though. That's why I wanted to ask this question.
I am not at all against money or free markets. But I am not sure anyone here would do anything better if they were paid. Especially 'buy me a coffee' kind of payments. For anything else, you are talking some kind of businesses, which I also fail to see here.
Maybe I am missing something. It looks like there are a few thousand people here who come to read some stuff, and even fewer to write some stuff. Who would pay them, why, and what for?
What kind of better (paid for) content are you thinking of?
If anything, Gemini proves that people who love doing things will do them whether paid or not.
👻 darkghost · Dec 23 at 15:14:
I'm not sure we get quality content on the paid web. Think about your average recipe site. It's pages and pages of fluff to get to the actual recipe, which is a list with a half dozen lines of instructions. The fluff is there to serve more ads to ensure the content is paid for. Margins were miniscule. And even that business model is falling apart with large numbers of people having their AI of choice regurgitate possibly correct recipes.
For blogs, it seems like it is paid for by VCs without a business model to make it work long term, eg substack. All good until the money runs out.
The Gemini experience is hobbyist by nature. Nobody is under the illusion that they will make money like most hobbies.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 16:59:
@stack I am an author among other titles I wear. I author according to my ability to produce some fruit from my undertaking of writing. Otherwise, it becomes "when I can get around to it" since I have to do other things than author if authoring fails to produce enough green. @darkghost Yes, AI is on the main web, which is why if people value human content, they had better figure out a way to incentivize it lest the hobbysits are swallowed whole.
👻 darkghost · Dec 23 at 18:29:
I believe there's an innate need to create. people will write if it satisfies that creative itch. I've done poetry but I'd be mad to believe anybody would pay me for it.
People who value human curated content will have problems finding it no matter what. If Gemini becomes the place where content is paid for, then AI will follow, even under the guise of being human made content. The thing that keeps it "safe" is because nobody is getting paid.
I do value people who create for a living and support writers, artists, and video creators on Patreon. I would love a less corporate means of support that isn't tied to one company who may one day decide the money trough is too low.
As for us here on the small net, this feels like a decent application of a cryptocurrency. Or a human curated experience such as mailing checks. Existing technologies like Venmo would work as well since all you need is email. Having self signed certificates is a no go for me sending my credit card information. I don't think there's a critical mass for having a certificate authority here on Gemini.
[Not a personal attack, and 'you' is not directed at anyone in particular!]
I don't think waiting for or educating the world to incentivize talent (or recognize your contributions) works. Neither do 'pay us or lose our genius' proclamations -- which generally only benefit corporate intellectual property portfolios and union leaders.
People either consider what you do necessary enough to pay for it, or not. There are many things I kind of like, but will absolutely not pay for -- if I can't get it for free I just won't bother and do something else. No one and nothing is so fabulous as not to be replaceable.
Richard Stallman was once asked if programmers will starve giving away software. He said that he is also very good at making funny faces, and would love to spend a lof of time doing so for a living, but the realities of life dictate otherwise, and some things you cannot get paid for.
If you can stop creating because you are not paid, maybe it's not something that you need to do in the first place and can probably find higher paying work doing something corporations or people value.
Personally, I feel privileged to create and give it away -- here as software (and unwanted opinions), and elsewhere in other humble attempts at art, music, code. I have a need to get my creative urges out, and it's nice when someone is paying me. But in the end, I had no choice but to do what I do, whether I am paid or not. It meant sometimes putting plans on hold and taking 'paying work' when necessary.
Finally, if the AI can replace your creative output, it's worth taking a critical look at why that is the case. Maybe it's not as valuable to others as you had thought.
I had a different idea of a "computer payment file", which is independent of the protocol (although I did not write all of the details, yet). It would be a DER file with a "order division" and a "payment division"; these can be encrypted separately if desired, and may have multiple encryption (so that the seller can see your order details and the price but not your bank account and stuff like that). In addition to the payment file, will also be another DER file which is the catalog file (which is provided by the seller), with a proof of work and some other features to attempt to prevent some kind of dishonesty from the seller.
I think that advertisements should be avoided, and most things do not need to be commercial; however, what I mentioned above can be useful when you are trying to do commercial things which are honest rather than dishonest.
X.509 client certificates do not seem to be that useful for this purpose, even though they are very useful for many other things (including for access to the service after you have paid for it, if it is something provided on the computer rather than a physical service; when it is, the certificate would also be used with the payment as well). X.509 server certificates can be useful for commercial transactions, although with what I had mentioned above, they are not strictly required if you have some other way of verifying the business (although you might have both, in which case your independent verification should tell you which certificate root to accept).
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 20:44:
@stack I'm not someone who thinks I need to educate the world on my talent. Likewise, I don't think writing is a matter of talent where being a writer is concerned. Plenty of talented, now regarded as genius-level writers struggled—often with no recognition during their lives. Of course if they had not done that, we might all be richer for the experience since they would have been doing what they were clearly best at doing.
As for the comments about AI replacing writing—it can't. People, however, can become debased enough they think it can, and that's why valuing art is an important firewall against turning into culutureless Philistines.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 20:47:
@darkghost I'd agree that the "original" cryptocurrency idea would work here. I think the modern version, though, has gotten to be a sloppy mess.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 20:48:
@zz308 That sounds like a potential solution. Have you any prototype to prove the concept?
@argyle: Agreed! Making money in this world is an entirely different skill.
The AI thing confounds me. The AI writing style (at least today) is so obvious that I have no idea how anyone would be fooled, or appreciate it for anything other than a quick explanation of something. I suppose it may be passable in business prose, which is generally stilted and limited in scope. But I don't believe that AI will compete with human creativity in any meaningful way, other than being a tool.
And yes, crypto would work fine here, as in here is my bitcoin address, send me funds in exchange for whatever. And no, you should not reinvent it, these things are complicated and already worked out. See Bitcoin.
👻 darkghost · Dec 23 at 21:06:
I think we're at a crossroads for creative output. Where creativity pays the bills it is to serve a commercial purpose more often than not. And commercial interests will pay to the lowest bidder, which is a free AI. Prior to this, many small commercial customers would attempt to commission artists for "exposure" and no money. The gaming industry is famous for exploitative conditions of their artists. A page I order bulk ingredients from lately introduced AI art with gnarly fingers and incomprehensible objects. Obviously they don't care one iota on how this reflects on them. It cost them my sale but they'll never know it. They saved paying an artist and made the page look better if you're not paying attention.
This is an emergent debate in all creative endeavors. From movie making to novel writing to music. The commercial interest is to get money for entertainment, advertising, or whatever. If the purpose of the creative work is enjoyment by others, can the audience appreciate AI outputs? That's a really deep question. It feels utterly soulless to do so. There is zero emotion or life experience behind the work. Zero meaning behind the work except the executive's desire for more money. But more importantly, if everyone has access to the technology, will anyone *pay* for a particular AI output? I think they won't, but it will unfortunately drag the value of actual human creative outputs down with it.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 21:07:
@stack The book market is flooded with AI content. It doesn't have to be good to "take over". It just has to drown out the signal with the noise.
👻 darkghost · Dec 23 at 21:07:
@argyle I agree. It's more of a slot machine than a currency.
Yes, I don't think the world will be prettier in the coming years. The only hope is that over the years AI will get better, and there will be some art direction to make things tolerable. When a new technology appears it takes a while to figure out what's acceptable.
Remember when laser printers came out along with 'desktop publishing', and the world was flooded with horrible graphic design -- 20 fonts on a page, ugly clip art and whatever. I'd argue that 40 years later things are much better, and graphic design and art are still valued. This goes all the way back to photo cameras ruining art, the printing press destroying everything, and probably the wheel as well.
@argyle, I was at a book store recently and can't say that it was flooded with AI books. Didn't look specifically, but I don't think I saw any...
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 22:01:
@stack How many gay/vampire/occult mostly aimed at teens books did you see? Odds are, any one of those is AI or greatly assisted by it.
You got me, didn't look there.
I don'r think I would mind 'greatly assisted' if well executed.
Also, don't want to be a snob but I don't think there were many pre-AI masterpieces in these niche genre books.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 22:14:
@stack in the Indie markets that is mainly what moves right now. It's not my genre, but the crowding is starting to cut into all other fiction. The original Mary Shelly and Bram Stoker were both in that genre and reasonably well written. Add to that pretty much anything by Poe. More modern might be House of Leaves. I think the problem is you aren't well-versed in literature in that specific realm. I don't especially try to be, but I know enough to know enough.
👻 darkghost · Dec 23 at 22:28:
I saw some online foraging books written by AI for sale. Seems like a dumb way to die.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 22:36:
@darkghost Good lord...
I am definitely ignorant on this subject, although have read and enjoyed Frankenstein. From shallow personal observation, vampire fanfiction read much like AI slop way before AI was around...
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 23 at 22:53:
@stack Fun trivia fact: Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein during the summer without a summer wherein there was no typical summer because a volcano had erupted and caused a seasonal change and very little summertime sun.
@argyle - I hope things work out for you! I have little doubt that there always will be a market for writers. People always panic when a new technology seems threatening, be it computers separately threatening typography, design, art, music, and even money , or older tech like television, photography, the automobile or the printing press...
👻 darkghost · Dec 25 at 20:29:
Video killed the radio star.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 26 at 04:24:
@stack Thank you for the wishes. In some sense, things have all ready not worked out for me, but that was previous to AI. De-platforming of payment processors is a thing, as well as being squelched. On the other hand, if those things happen, you could argue things are working out for you but not in a financial manner. The key then becomes having a way for people to hear and see you and possibly value your work. Therein is the trick.
I wrote a draft specification of computer payment file:
— https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zzo38/scorpion/refs/heads/trunk/misc/payment.txt
(I did not implement it because I am not familiar with doing any kind of payment by computers; someone with a comment may make suggestions about changes to the specification so far. I probably missed some things and/or made some mistakes.)
Depending on corporations for one's well-being often leads to unpleasant surprises. That is why alternative solutions are important, even though it's getting harder and harder to even convince people of that.
@zzo38: what is the point of that? Is there a problem with existing tech that you are solving?
There are many points, such as: to improve security of payment, to avoid using overly complicated web browsers, to avoid some of the dishonest things that other ways do, to make it effective for many kind of payment (including anonymous payment), to be independent of the protocol, etc. (I might improve the document later today; I already found some mistakes, but there are some I probably don't know so if someone else knows enough about computer payment would be able to comment better.)
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 26 at 22:39:
@stack, Ah, but you see, there is the interesting part. I wasn't depending on a corporation. The corporation sent people out, however, to interfere in my business and ultimately use their leverage to shut my independence down. They did this illegally, and unjustly, but they did it just the same.
🚀 argyle [OP] · Dec 26 at 22:41:
@zzo38 That looks pretty neat. I'll have to look at it more carefully when I have some time to read. I like the basic ideas I see so far.
in generally i believe that commerce is what spoiled our internet, and that there ane very few, if any, ethicasl ways to earn on the intenrnet.
most ways i can imagine exploit the end user inevitably.
so i think it is the best when 'service' is being offered by a community or hobbyist, and the node is always very small, comparable with this bbs.
if gemini has more users, we'll need more forums and federation, or some decentralized system like usenet, or usenet with gemini frontend.
on topic: afaik all payments on the internet use https.
so if you implement something with gemini interface, it should talk to bank or other entity via http.
also, i guess you can implement a crypto payment that is possible to use via gemini. if we forget that crypto sphere itself is very questionable.