Zeno

Reclaiming the Web

In recent years, the web has become ever-more bloated with endless ads and invasive trackers. This results in many sites being excruciatingly slow, excluding users on poor internet connections or minimal hardware, and rendering some sites almost unusable. This stands in stark contrast to the original vision of the internet as an "information superhighway", a seamless platform for sharing knowledge and ideas, now overshadowed by cluttered interfaces and diluted content buried under layers of ads and distractions.

The root of this issue lies in monetisation: creators need ways to earn an income from their work, and the dominant strategy has been to overload sites with popup ads and referral links. As more people use ad-blockers and privacy tools, this monetisation method becomes less viable, and so more ad clutter is required to give the creator a decent payout. It's clear that this system is broken, failing both creators and consumers, and the web is getting worse by the day because of it. If we can fix the root of the issue, perhaps we can restore the internet to deliver on it's original promise of an open platform to share and gain knowledge.

The Issue

You don't have to look for long to see how badly this issue is plaguing sites. Just look for any kind of informative content like a tutorial or guide, and you are guaranteed to have a hard time finding a useable site. What should be a concise and helpful resource has become diluted with redundant elements, auto playing ad videos and JavaScript slowing the site down. A simple html page containing a few paragraphs of text should only need a few hundred kilobytes of data to load. However, many modern sites use 10s of megabytes just to load a similar sized article. The content is no different, the only change is the addition of useless bloat that adds nothing to the user experience. You could argue that a lot of the extra data for for theming to make the site look a lot more visually appealing, however most sites actually look much better and are easier to navigate with a minimalist theme. Adding animations, blur, and fancy styles usually does a lot more to hinder usability and improve it, and often detracts from the actual content of the website.

The Cost of Creating Content

Content creation demands time and resources. Blogs need to be written, videos filmed, and games or tools developed, and many creators are not willing to work for free. Some have tried to monetise their content by asking for donations, but relying on the good will of others can only get you so far. The vast majority of people will not donate, largely due to the hassle of sending money, meaning the creator relies on the generous minority for income.

Why Donations Don't Work

The reason that the donation model does not usually work is not because people lack generosity; I'm sure many would happily pay creators directly in exchange for an ad-free experience. The issue is the ease of making a donation. Donating should be completely friction-less, and ideally automated. You should be able to browse the web, watching videos, reading articles and listening to music, and at the end of the week send out a few dollars to the authors of the content you consumed the most without having to think about it.

Micro-tipping

Most people would be happy to donate a small "micro-tip" for the content they consume in exchange for no ads, trackers or other privacy-invading monetisation strategies. But the main barrier to this is convenience. If you read a short blog post or watch a video, you don't have time to find the author's PayPal and send a small tip. It would feel very insignificant to donate a few cents to a creator, but a few cents is likely much more than they would have ever earned from ads, and these small donations add up. If every person that reads an article donates a few cents to the author, these donations would cost the reader almost nothing, but would totally replace and exceed any potential ad revenue. This way, everyone is happy: readers get a de-bloated ad-free experience of reading/watching content, the author gets a steady revenue from micro-tips, and there is no advertiser middleman taking a cut.

The Idea

I propose a solution to the shortcomings of advertisement-focused monetisation models: An application that records which web content you have consumed in a given month, and automatically allocated a set amount of money to creators, proportional to how long you have spent on their site. Content creators can sign up to this platform and receive donations for ad-free content, and users can donate to their favourite creators without thinking about it.

Incentivisation

You may be wondering why people would decide to tip creators if the content is free. While this is certainly an issue, I believe that even a small proportion of users tipping would surpass any potential ad revenue. The emphasis on micro-tips, donating a small amount of money if you enjoyed someone's article/video/music, is a lot more appealing due to the low barrier to entry. However, for creators that need a guaranteed source of revenue and don't want to rely on the generosity of users, the platform should offer ways of providing benefits or extra content to supporters. This would function similar to platforms like Patreon, but would be focused on smaller amounts of money. Supporters that donate over a certain amount of money would gain access to additional content, but the main content would remain free.

The Role of Cryptocurrency

For this kind of application, where creators are relying on the service for income, decentralisation is essential. If this service was run by a a single centralised entity, it would likely take advantage of the platform and charge an unfair cut on donations. Additionally, creators would have no say in the development of the application and how it operates behind the scenes. Ensuring auditability and transparency is essential to verify the funds are being distributed fairly to creators. Therefore, such a system would benefit greatly from permissionless technologies such as blockchain. All the transactions would be recorded on a ledger, ensuring fairness, and users can verify exactly where funds are going. Utilising blockchain technology would also vastly simplify the transfer of value, as cryptocurrencies allow for direct peer-to-peer transfers with no intermediary. Many of the transactions would be of very small amounts, due to the "micro-tipping" concept. Sending such small amounts of money, as little as a few cents, is not feasible with fiat money, but it can be easily achieved with layer 2 solutions such as Bitcoin's Lightning Network of Ethereum's Arbitrum.

Summary

The deterioration of the modern web is caused by ad-based monetisation failing, leading to more intrusive ads and smaller payouts for creators. We need an alternative model that makes donating to creators easier and automated, replacing ads with seamless micro-tipping. This way, we can reclaim the web and restore it to what it should have always been: A streamlined, user-centric platform for sharing knowledge and entertainment, without the bloat.