Web Monetization is a project that aims to open and unify an API for paying fees on the Internet to content creators as a web browser API.
The web platform was created in 1989, but with the development of the Internet, various functions have been added. However, even after 30 years of birth, the remittance function is not implemented, and in order to pay for funds on the web, the web service provider needs to prepare a separate structure and requires a fee, so the payment amount must be over a certain amount.
The web monetization API was proposed to improve this situation. This API supports small payments of less than 10 won and uses ILP (Interledger Protocol) for remittance, so it is designed for the web era as it automatically exchanges money no matter what currency the user pays. When payment is made using this API, the user side and the producer side only need to sign a contract with one ILP support service.
In order to receive payment, you also need an account service corresponding to ILP. After opening an account, you will receive an address called a payment pointer and set the address as a website meta tag. You can also add benefits, such as clearing ads for billed users. The web monetization site introduces three types of account services (Uphold, GateHub, and Stronghold) for ILP.
In order for users to use this service, they have to contract with a web monetization response service, but it has not yet been implemented in major browsers. Also, the only service that is posted on the web monetization site is called Coil. Coil is a service that pays $5 per month and sends a small chip to a web monetization site with that amount. In addition to responding to this API by using a dedicated extension function, it also includes a Puma Browser that supports web monetization APIs so that it can be used on smartphones that cannot use the extension function.
The web monetization API is still in the proposed stage in the web standard. Related information can be found here .