Monetized Comments: The Quickest Way to Get Paid Online?

The problem of funding content is destroying the internet – toxic click-bait gets eyeballs and ad money whilst investigative journalism sinks.

Web monetization could help but effective implementations keep eluding us. Surely some smart payment solution will break through?

Innovators have long looked at micropayments to solve this. There are plenty of attempts to make micropayments systems widespread online.

Whoever succeeds will change our economies forever and with digital wallets on the rise, something is bound to stick soon.

Micropayments for great comments

At openDemocracy we have introduced a feature that shares micropayments with authors and commenters – we call it CommentX.

With this, we encourage authors to engage with commenters in order to support both parties.

Of course, most commenters don’t need a financial incentive to comment, and introducing this has its risks. On the other hand, some comments can be just as valuable as a piece written by a paid journalist so perhaps we should reward great writing even in the comment form.

In any case, this is an experiment in funding public debate and you can try it today.

Here’s how it works:

1. Readers visit an article page whilst having a micropayments plugin active on their browser e.g. Coil. This automatically sends a micropayment to the digital wallet listed on the page when the user visits.
2. Micropayment revenue is shared between the author and the publisher, openDemocracy.
3. If the author highlights a comment, then that comment gets showcased in the article and the commenter gets part of the revenue share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cow17sVmZRM

Authors who highlight comments also receive a greater proportion of revenue. We therefore introduce new incentives for readers to comment and for authors to engage with comments.

We hope that this leads to more vivacious, constructive debates.

The project will allow us to test out different payments schemas and see what works.

The quickest way to get paid online?

This project allows you to tip authors and commenters whose contributions you appreciate – and receive tips yourself if your comments are chosen. The long tail means those payments could add up over time.

We invite you to take part in this experiment and find out how we can change the web with micropayments. Here’s how to get involved.

As a reader who wants to support authors and commenters

1. Sign up to Coil. Your $5/month subscription is shared between content you visit.
2. Set up the Coil browser extension for Chrome or Firefox.
3. When you visit participating articles, Coil shares micropayments with openDemocracy, the author and any highlighted commenter – it's currently about $0.36/hour. It will also reward other websites and creators in the micropayments ecosystem when you visit their content.

As a commenter who wants to be eligible for payments

1. Get a digital payment wallet, for example with Uphold.com. It can take a couple of days to process. This lets you receive payments with the Interledger protocol.

2. Sign up to make comments in our comments space. Add your payment wallet.

3. Add constructive comments to articles. Comments that best complement or advance the article will be highlighted.

   
   

   If your comment gets highlighted on articles with the “Better comments online” popup, then your wallet will receive a 50% share of the article’s earnings (subject to change).

Building the web consciously

We encourage readers to try this out as both a subscriber (e.g. with Coil for a few pounds a month) and by commenting on participating articles in the hope that your point will be recognised.

The novel feeling of paying websites as you visit is interesting from the user’s perspective, as is having a wallet attached to your various online contributions ready to be rewarded. The politics of all this is to be discovered and discussed.

Experiments like these allow us to explore new economics online.

You can play your part by testing this out and sharing your opinions with us. Together we can build a different internet.

CommentX is open-source software supported by Grant For the Web. We welcome your contributions and feedback.