[HN Gopher] Show HN: Create a paid link to anything ___________________________________________________________________ Show HN: Create a paid link to anything Author : neptuneis Score : 237 points Date : 2022-12-20 15:23 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (paidlink.to) (TXT) w3m dump (paidlink.to) | franze wrote: | gumroad started the exact same way | lx0741 wrote: | goldmine for fake links? does it check ownership? | adg001 wrote: | It is worth to note that the users of such service can set an | expiration date for linked resource access. | | This can be used, for instance, by gig workers to deliver | documents to their clients, while conditioning the retrieval of | such documents to a payment. | Jamesmoorez wrote: | Jamesmoorez wrote: | terpimost wrote: | Awesome idea! | update8887 wrote: | Great idea! Only seems to work in the USA, with the stripe | integration requiring to have an account based there. | booleandilemma wrote: | I can tell by the amount of negativity and willful ignorance in | the comments (why would I buy something by clicking on a link?!) | that this service will be a big success. | | Congratulations! | jesusofnazarath wrote: | doerig wrote: | If someone hypothetically did a chargeback, who would have to pay | the ~$15 dispute fee? You or the user that created the link? | mitchdoogle wrote: | It looks like you have to tie it to your stripe account so you | (the seller) would be | fitzroy wrote: | Does the buyer need to setup an account? | | How does this service prevent the actual (free) URL of the | content from being visible / shared after a user pays? It seems | like this would be difficult for some of the use cases presented | (YouTube, Wordpress, etc) without managing the backend. | | And how long does the buyer have access? How do they regain | access to the link later? | notdonspaulding wrote: | I like this idea. I have no clue whether all the concerns here | about ToS/legal/chargeback issues are valid, but I've thought a | service like this should exist for a while now (whenever a | relative asks me how to get started with a website for a simple | product they want to sell). | | However, I think you need to consider the overloading of the term | "link" in your product. I know it's your name, but the example | shows just how confusing the overloading of the term is to your | users. Here's the breakdown of what my mind does as it scans the | example link page: | | - Ah, I'm at a site, "Paid _Link_ dot To " | | - "This _link_ costs $15 to access " - OK, the seller page I just | left is selling me something called a "link" | | - "You are trying to accessed a _link_ " - Skip over typo...OK, | what's the link I tried to access? Like, what's even the thing I | was trying to do on the last page? | | - "Autofill your card with _Link_ " - Huh? The link already has | my card? | | - "... or create a _Link_ account " - Is link the name of the | site I'm on, the site I came from, or the thing I'm buying? Why | do I need/want an account from any of them? If any of them, I'm | assuming the account I should want to create is with the seller | with whom I've just decided to transact business. | | - " _Link_ logo Learn More " - Is this the link I need to click | on to get the thing I want? Like a "Download Now" button on a | link scam website like softpedia? | | - "Access _Link_ " - does this button take me to my Link account? | A new website called Link? Ah, it's the content I've been after | this whole time. | | Certainly none of that is insurmountable for the user, but I just | wanted to put it out there to give you my impression as someone | who's brand new to your site. | fiat_fandango wrote: | This seems like an absolute legal nightmare - ToS will never hold | up in court, you've basically just saved criminals and scammers a | few days of work. | Cypher wrote: | I thought we were over the age of paywalls | ujnproduct wrote: | This is an amazing product & given that gumroad has recently | increased prices, the timing could not have been better. But | information architecture of the landing page needs to change. I | am left with the following questions after reading the content on | the website. | | 1. How much margin does the platform charge? 2. Why can't I see a | preview to what I am paying for? 3. How is it better than | Gumroad, Stripe and others? Margins, ease of use etc, whatever | your arguments are, I would love a detailed explanation. | dale_glass wrote: | I'm not convinced this isn't a solution in search of a problem. | What is it good for? | | For most things being sold you'll want an account attached. If | this is a song or a book then you probably want to at least have | functionality like reviews, ratings and recommendations. | | Whatever it is that you're selling probably forms part of some | sort of established relationship -- I don't recall ever getting | out my credit card and paying $5 for something from a random link | on Twitter. | | It also seems abuse prone. If we're supposed to share these paid | links, that creates an incentive for scammers and trolls to | create their own links and get people's money while delivering | nothing. That means customers will lose confidence in the system, | vendors will get screwed, and the company will be hit with | chargebacks. This seems like a dangerous business model. | | For the vendor side, this seems to be a redirector, so once the | first person pays, they can share the URL they got redirected to. | This doesn't seem like a good business plan. | | EDIT: I just got one to load. This is all I get: | | "This link costs $15.00 to access. You are trying to accessed a | link through PaidLink.to, which requires payment to proceed. Fill | out your payment details below." | | What the heck am I even paying $15 for? I haven't a clue. Not | only there's no preview, there's not even a description! | | Screenshot for anyone having issues: https://imgur.com/YIsypEN | jonnycomputer wrote: | You're paying for the information about what the link points | to, apparently. | | Imagine, for example, Musk's twitter requiring payment to see | what some user's post linked to somewhere else off of Twitter. | | Not saying its a good idea. It's mafia-esque, tbh. | lx0741 wrote: | good for onlyfans "influencers"? | layer8 wrote: | The adjacent submission https://tafc.space/qna/the-topologists- | world-map/ would be an example use case, for selling the | digital version of their map. | masswerk wrote: | Also: as a user, I have no idea whom I am paying - is it the | content creator, a scammer, an obscure man in the middle? What | kind of transaction is this even? Is there any kind of | resolution in case of conflict? It's just an actual payment | block box with the promise of some content behind that link, | which cannot be verified, and no trust at all. | | (Edit) In terms of transparency, there isn't really much to | find out about of who is behind this service. From the _terms | of service_ (hosted by another domain) we learn: | | _Neptune Technologies, United States_ (no further address | details) | | But there's an email address, and this is the site behind that | domain: http://www.neptune.is (???) | noxer wrote: | This is most likely targeted at the onlyfans kinda "internet | sex worker" who sell zip archives or lewd images and videos. | This lets "content creator" circumvent the platform fees that | come with selling over platforms like onlyfans. | Cypher wrote: | aren't they just trading Onlyfans fee for this platform fee. | dale_glass wrote: | So on one hand, I think this is still too little. Even when | buying porn one would want to know exactly what it is they're | paying for, and it would make more sense to do the payment at | some place with a gallery, previews, etc. | | But on the other hand, this might be a plausible deniability | sort of thing. This way paidlink.to doesn't host anything, | they don't even say what it is that they're going to direct | the user to. This might be an attempt to keep payment | processors off their back as long as possible. | | It may not work forever but since next to nothing is being | provided, this site is extremely cheap to setup and run, | which means it won't take long to pay off. | nvr219 wrote: | Why should the payment piece show a preview or gallery or | anything? When I buy something using paypal, that info | isn't on PayPal - it's on the vendor site. | Nowado wrote: | If customer has an established relationship with a seller | already, seller can put this link on a website where | products are presented. It's not polished, but it's fine. | lalopalota wrote: | I imagine the description / preview would be displayed with | the link on the seller's site. No need for this service to | open itself to the liability / vulnerability of displaying | whatever the seller wants (illegal content / XSS / etc) | ChuckMcM wrote: | From dale_glass' comment below: _This way paidlink.to doesn 't | host anything, they don't even say what it is that they're | going to direct the user to. This might be an attempt to keep | payment processors off their back as long as possible._ | | This explanation strikes me as being closest. There is a well | known problem, which is that using the non-crypto payment | systems for things is difficult, by disintermediating the | payment provider from the product the paidlink guys can say | they have clean hands. | | VISA: "What are you selling?" | | PL: "Links" | | VISA: "Links to what? Prohibited items?" | | PL: "Oh no, our TOS doesn't allow that, we tell our customers | not do do that." | | VISA: "Can you verify that they don't?" | | PL: "Uh, well as far as our platform is concerned their just | links, you know like groceries are just groceries, we don't get | into the nitty gritty of what exactly they are." | | The weird thing is, even if the PL guys are 100% aligned with | not letting their customers use this for "bad things" their | customers are going to try to find ways around any systems they | put in place to check or regulate. | | Watching the shenanigans people pulled to get around our | efforts to prevent the misuse of Blekko (a search engine) was | really educational in that regard. | strifey wrote: | You might have noticed already, but your reply is quoting the | same person you're replying to. | 411111111111111 wrote: | My first thought was that this was made for crypto locker | payments. | | The locker displays the qr code and polls for payment status | O__________O wrote: | For clarity, you're referring to ransomware. | jstummbillig wrote: | > For most things being sold you'll want an account attached. | | Who is the subject? Because in my mind, for most things sold, | as the buyer, you actually just want the product/service. | | > I don't recall ever getting out my credit card and paying $5 | | Even if you never shopped in a retail store or dined in a | restaurant and paid with your credit card (which seems somewhat | unlikely) you are familiar with the concept of paying for | something "random" as a one of. What's the conceptual hurdle? | robbyking wrote: | > _I don 't recall ever getting out my credit card and paying | $5 for something from a random link on Twitter._ | | The other issues with this site aside, affiliate programs don't | require the user purchase the item that brought them to the | site. There's a book I found myself recommending quite often, | so I created an affiliate account at a retailer and started | using that link when I recommended it online. I make about $100 | each quarter off of site referrals, but almost no one buys the | book -- instead they follow the link, click on something in a | related items carousel and buy one of those items. Sometimes | the time between click and purchase is pretty long (weeks or | even months), but as long as the affiliate cook persists I get | a percentage of the purchase price. | jollyllama wrote: | Accounts are a barrier to sales. | geysersam wrote: | 1. You can still have reviews, decription of content, etc etc. | But it doesn't have to ce coupled to payment processing and | distribution of the content. | | This _significantly_ lowers the bar for what is required to | have a "webshop" like page. For example: a Reddit post can | have a product description, with payment links directly in the | description, and reviews in the comments. How convenient is | that? | | 2. | | > What the heck am I paying for? | | I assume you accessed their example link. In practice you would | have clicked the link from a page describing what you are | paying for. | | I'm not affiliated with the product. Just found this a really | cool and innovative idea. | zyx321 wrote: | If your example doesn't show how the tool is supposed to be | used in practice, it's kind of a garbage example. | croes wrote: | Clicking a link and getting to a page without mentioning what | I'm paying for is highly suspicious. | emodendroket wrote: | I've seen similar products except the thing was that they made | you watch ads. These were mostly popular with people sharing | links to pirated content. | vikingerik wrote: | _> I 'm not convinced this isn't a solution in search of a | problem. What is it good for?_ | | It's quite possible this isn't determined yet. It might exactly | be a solution searching for a problem, intentionally so. | | The creator can implement the idea and launch it as a proof-of- | concept, and see if anyone comes up with any good use cases for | it. Maybe it goes nowhere, but maybe it's worth a shot at | hitting it big in some unforeseen niche. | captainmuon wrote: | I can imagine this is useful if you want to sell digital goods, | say an ebook or, cough, pictures, but don't want to or can't | set up a shop, or use a payment processor. It looks like a | simple and convenient solution, they handle all the payments | and send you a check in the end. | | But oh boy this seems to be an invitation to money laundering. | 3 2 1 and people are going to put up links, and buy them | themselves with stolen credit cards. | sdwr wrote: | You kidding me? You're a complainer in search of an issue, | there's nothing wrong with this. "Buying things on the | internet" obviously works already, in the form of patreon, | subscriptions, and digital purchases. This is a minimal, clean | service, does exactly what it says on the tin. IDK if it gets | any uptake, and the UI doesn't quite look trustworthy enough | for my taste, but the idea itself is pretty much perfect. | pcthrowaway wrote: | > IDK if it gets any uptake | | This is pretty much what solution in search of a problem is. | "Here, we made this thing that solves this problem someone | could theoretically have." _crickets_ | dale_glass wrote: | > You kidding me? You're a complainer in search of an issue, | there's nothing wrong with this. "Buying things on the | internet" obviously works already, in the form of patreon, | subscriptions, and digital purchases. | | And I've used such services, yes. But this looks way too | minimalistic to me to be useful. | | On Patreon I subscribe to a specific artist. I know who they | are and they can know me if we talk to each other. I can | favorite posts, provide feedback, get perks, etc. When an | artist says that for $10 I'll get access to their latest | sketches that's a public announcement on Patreon, and if they | don't hold up their promise, fans will get upset. | | Here there's an obscure link. I don't know what I'm paying | for, or who made it. I don't know whether it belongs to the | actual person who's supposed to benefit. Somebody could pay | for the first access, make their own link and then leech off | the actual artist by spreading their link around. | Mystery-Machine wrote: | Wtf man? | | First you claim this is useless, then, in this reply you | claim that you've used similar services before. Make up | your mind. | | Yes, it's simplistic and ugly af. But don't attack the | idea. | | And, I guess, you got that link from somewhere, or rather | from someone. | charcircuit wrote: | He said he used similar services to Patreon. | yyu990 wrote: | The artist can just have a webpage/blog/... where they | would include such "paid links". That is, the audience | _still_ knows who they are and _still_ builds some trust | etc. But now they don 't have to deal with setting up | payment systems and account handling and billing and all | that stuff. The value proposition of the OP service is to | take care of all that and the artist can focus on their art | instead. A per-click webshop, basically. | giantrobot wrote: | The issue is I as a scammer can create a paid link to any | arbitrary URL, including _your_ URL. There 's no | verification of control like how say LetsEncrypt works. | As a user I'm taken to a link with no verification of | what I might be paying for. There's no preview of the | content or even a declaration of who might own rights to | the linked content. So I get a link that says I need to | pay $10, what the fuck am I paying for? | | Even if I followed a link and expect to be paying, a | scammer could also send me a link to the same content. I | expected to pay through this site so I go ahead and pay | for the content. Since I followed the scammer's link they | get paid instead of the content owner. | | This is a system just rife with abuse potential. | lmm wrote: | > The issue is I as a scammer can create a paid link to | any arbitrary URL, including your URL. | | Sure, but that was a problem that already existed. People | already sell other people's artworks / pictures / etc.. | Having to copy a file rather than a link is not a | significant barrier. | | > Even if I followed a link and expect to be paying, a | scammer could also send me a link to the same content. I | expected to pay through this site so I go ahead and pay | for the content. Since I followed the scammer's link they | get paid instead of the content owner. | | Presumably you're getting the link from somewhere | reputable - the creator's own site, or their | patreon/twitter/etc.. Sure, a scammer can create a fake | profile to impersonate them - but again, that's something | that already happens. | sacrosancty wrote: | TylerE wrote: | What happens when the URL inevitably starts 404ing would be | my first question. | blacksmith_tb wrote: | It would be a plus if paidlink.to actually made a call to | the link before accepting payment, and put up a warning / | stopped the transaction if it didn't get a 200, "We're | sorry but thingyouwanted.com/enticing.html isn't | currrently available, please try again later." | wpietri wrote: | It is "perfect" in the H L Mencken sense: "For every complex | problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." | | One of the reasons that Bitcoin never took off for their | stated purpose, payment, is that they had a similarly too- | simple model of irreversible one-shot transfers. Anybody who | has worked on an actual payment system can tell you that | commerce is more complex than that. | dale_glass wrote: | I don't think that was the main issue. Bitcoin's main use | as an actual currency was for things like drugs, where the | legal system wouldn't be on your side anyway. So lack of | chargebacks wasn't an issue anyway. | | The bigger issues with BTC is the onboarding problem, | limited capacity and rapidly fluctuating exchange rate. | wpietri wrote: | I don't think I said it was the main issue. I agree that | it had other problems too, including the ones you name. | | But I think you're missing my point. The anonymous, one- | shot nature of things made it most appealing to only one | set of merchants and one set of customers: people doing | crime, and who were therefore most tolerant of the risks. | | The onboarding problem is also partly a consequence of | this. Because a bitcoin transaction is irreversible, and | exchange can't just take a credit card payment and give | you bitcoin. | jvanderbot wrote: | I think a lot of folks are mistaking this service for the front- | end store. | | If I create a perfectly reputable storefront with a "We use | thirdparty paidlink.to for simple one-time purchases", it's quite | easy to understand how you get customers to use this. It's no | different than "We use stripe, I promise this popup window that | asks for credit information is legit". | hanniabu wrote: | But all this does is create a middleman link, so people can | just share the final link and bypass the payment | SamBam wrote: | Agreed. | | As an example, I buy sheet music PDFs from online stores. The | stores often show the first part of a PDF and then you pay and | get access to download the PDF. | | It would be easy to imagine then replacing their system with | this. | | As a customer, I see no real difference. If I paid the store | and didn't get the sheet music, of probably be stuck in credit | card chargeback hell anyway. | | As the store, there are probably some downsides. E.g. their own | system can probably give me a unique link. That link may expire | after I use it. With this system, there's nothing preventing me | from tweeting the link if I wanted to. | Raydovsky wrote: | But you can tweet the link to your files uploaded to Google | drive | gowld wrote: | The difference is that, when I am shopping on | InterestingContentForSaleSite.com, now I have TWO sketchy | companeis to worry about, InterestingContentForSaleSite.com and | paidlinkto.com | | 2 vendors is infinitely worse than 1, because they can blame | each other for whatever goes wrong, creating an unbreakable | circle of blame. If I try to chargeback paidlink.to, they can | say "the link works, not our fault that the user and | InterestingContentForSaleSite.com disagree on the value of the | link". | | At least PayPal has some reputation for consumer protection. | correlator wrote: | Seems like an interesting approach to doing things like online | paid concerts. I don't know the space well, there may already be | solutions for this in the market. Still, if this is successful, I | imagine Twitch/Youtube etc. could quickly add this. | TylerE wrote: | That's a solved problem at this point. | | Payment processing is not the hard part there. | mankins wrote: | I created a similar service to this called Monetized.Link | https://www.monetized.link/ ...We describe it as if you put | together a tiny url and a paywall. From what I've seen there's a | fair amount of interest in easily converting a link into money. | Like Gumroad we've tried to make it as easy as possible, but more | to be done. | | Our team's background is in content so we initially were | imagining this as a paywall for one-off content. You could put | these monetized links inside a newsletter or twitter stream for | instance and get an easy to create payment stream from your | exiting users. | | Over the product's development we have found support with the | web3 community doing token gating (get the premium content if you | own an NFT for instance). | [deleted] | the-anarchist wrote: | I'd like to have this but for XMR payments. | EGreg wrote: | How about selling memberships and roles in a community using | crypto, then other websites can just query the blockchain to see | if you have that role? | rgbrgb wrote: | You'd be unable to use it in safari or embedded browsers though | (e.g. twitter app). Apple Pay is 2 clicks here. | EGreg wrote: | Why unable to? To read the blockchain you use any Ethereum | RPC provider, pure HTTP interface no need for MetaMask. | | Embedded browsers and iOS safari do sign transactions using | WalletConnect. Or you can deeplink into a wallet dapp browser | too. | rgbrgb wrote: | Oh nice, I didn't know about that. How does it work? You | sign into a centralized wallet provider like paypal? | | For most things my gut says deeplinking to a dapp is going | to kill conversion. Use cases I'm thinking are selling | audio samples or a sewing pattern... stuff people use | gumroad for. | | I wonder how the transaction costs compare at these price | points ($1-20). Hoping that's gotten better. Last time I | tried sending eth it only made sense for big transactions. | lakomen wrote: | I think that's a really good idea | ms7892 wrote: | Right timing of launch if we consider Gumroad's price increament. | dbg31415 wrote: | I think there was a link-shortener back in the day (when people | used link-shorteners) that did this. The exact same way. I can't | remember what happened to them... if they went out of business in | a month because nobody used the service, or if it took two | months. | | So many problems here. Once I have the link, I can just re-share | it and bypass the paywall. For starters. | | But also, smaller stuff... the UX on the paywall is bad. It needs | a preview... UX on the whole of the site is very bad. If you're | going to charge, make sure it's a good experience. Not just | something that looks like someone slapped it together in a | basement in an hour. Get a real designer, a logo, a brand | theme... It'll add trust. | | The costs seem to not be great in terms of what the content | creator gets to keep. | cc101 wrote: | If I understand your objection, I don't think it is a problem. | Wouldn't the preview et. al. be on the web page with the sales | pitch? Only after the user was satisfied with what was being | offered on that page, would the user request (and then pay) for | the link. | MonkeyClub wrote: | Or rather: https://paidlink.to/l/OxLrwggYVi | | Doesn't work, though, it Server Errors. | | Also, out of $1.00 I net only $0.25? | neptuneis wrote: | Hrm, seems like your Stripe account didn't get fully created. | I'll take a look at this. In the meantime, the UX looks like | this: | | > https://paidlink.to/l/aofBHyHOkU | | (Obviously, don't click through, it doesn't go anywhere for | your $15.00). | cleerline wrote: | why no paypal? | David_Axelrod wrote: | God damn it. I really wanted to see what your paywall looked like | but got hit with "hey signup. hey link your stripe". | | Show me an example. | jraph wrote: | Ah, the famous HN "I didn't see the playwall, how can I work | around the absence of a paywall?" | | Here you go: https://paidlink.to/l/aofBHyHOkU | | (from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34067109#34067410) | | (does not look pretty with JS disabled, there's an icon the | size of my screen) | pimlottc wrote: | Would be useful to have an example paidlink so you can see what | the UX is like for visitors. | MonkeyClub wrote: | Check my paidlink.to link to paidlink.to above | (https://paidlink.to/l/OxLrwggYVi). | | The UX is as follows: | | > Server Error (500) | O__________O wrote: | Anyone able to comment on what fees they're charging and | onboarding process? | | So far for the onboarding process I have: | | - signup by giving email and password; does not appear to be an | email confirmation | | - Thank you for registering, [insert-signup-email]. Next, we will | have you register with our payment processor, Stripe, to collect | payments for your link. (Link to "Continue to Stripe") | | - No idea. | | __________ | | Edit: In searching for their pricing found a competitor that's | charging 0.5-1% of the transaction: | | https://help.paid.link/knowledgebase.php?article=22 | miiiiiike wrote: | This is a good idea. Very simple. | xwdv wrote: | Anybody get a HTTP 402 error? | eternityforest wrote: | Looks awesome, with just a few issues. | | One is that I don't see PayPal support. Typing credit card info | into any site not owned by a billion dollar company is a bit | scary. | | Secondly, and this is just a personal thing, I'm not sure it | would support any of my ideas that might be a use case. | | Do you have any plans to add the ability to handle membership or | paid unique codes? As a lone dev, I would prefer to never touch | anyone's financial info. | | It would be cool if there was a service that would handle | accounts and user data 100% so an app never had to touch it | whatsoever. | | It could provide Oauth2 SSO or something, but only if the user | paid. | | Or it could just act as a paid proxy that adds a secret API key | plus the user's per-site anonymized ID and membership level. | | It could even have an API fot the app to store files on the | proxy, which the user would have full access to in their account | portal. | | That way an app developer never stores any user data at all, you | could make a paid app just by making an open access unpaid app | and hiding it behind the proxy. | dubcanada wrote: | > One is that I don't see PayPal support. Typing credit card | info into any site not owned by a billion dollar company is a | bit scary. | | I get the PayPal support, but why are you so averse to typing | in a credit card for a company who maybe makes 1 million a | year? | topicseed wrote: | > for a company who maybe makes 1 million a year | | Do they? | UncleEntity wrote: | Because they probably have bad interwebs security? | | PayPal loses credit card information to hackers and there's | congressional investigations, dodgy website selling "links" | gets hacked and it's all about "buyer beware". | max_ wrote: | I would use this if it had stable coin support like USDC. Please | add something like that or just BTC. | | Also, that way we would not need to setup a stripe account. | ezekg wrote: | But couldn't people just share the link after the redirect? | jorts wrote: | Could be blocked based on referrer? | alexcroox wrote: | This is a no code solution | neptuneis wrote: | That's exactly right. This service wouldn't be appropriate if | you were trying to protect access to (for example) a full web | application. It could be appropriate if you were selling (for | example) access to an individual Zoom call or Google Doc and | didn't have concerns about the link being shared afterwards. | aliqot wrote: | you could do a caching proxy then sell access to the cache | data, or make the person selling the link pay more % to keep | the link cached longer, maybe like an IPFS pin or something | mandeepj wrote: | You can stack the items under "Trusted to monetize access to:" in | one row, instead of a column. It'll reduce page height and make | the page scroll-free. While you are at it, please reduce the size | of those giant icons. | pHollda wrote: | What's up with all of this financializing of everything?? | eterevsky wrote: | Beats ads-driven publishing IMO. At least you are directly | paying for what you are getting. | fishtoaster wrote: | What's new here? People have been selling things online for 30 | years and selling digital things (ebooks, zines, videos) for | just as long. This is basically a lower-tech Gumroad. | JohnCClarke wrote: | Capitalism | update8887 wrote: | capitali.sm | update8887 wrote: | https://paidlink.to/l/QyiCPgyIAg | warkdarrior wrote: | Financialization will continue until morale improves. | the_third_wave wrote: | It comes from the drive for "monetisation" which is the most | recent form of alchemy. Where the alchemists of old tried to | turn base metals into gold these _monitists_ try to turn | everything into a bunch of changed bits in a file on some bank | 's computer system. Future history will tell whether | _monetists_ had better luck than the alchemists of old. | vyrotek wrote: | View this comment for $3! https://t.ly/T8hb | mritchie712 wrote: | thought this would be a link to an NFT. It's bad, but still | better. | brookst wrote: | I was 100% prepared to pay $3 to view your comment, and was | sadly disappointed. | layer8 wrote: | I believe it's called capitalism. | behnamoh wrote: | Gotta pay the bills somehow. | logn wrote: | Crypto/payment startups are a sort of sudoku distracting VC's | and software engineers, building an abstract world of endless | technical complexity that passes for fulfilling work. | 99failures wrote: | so OK. How do I, the publisher, get my money? | | A FAQ would be nice. | Justsignedup wrote: | how will this be abuse proof? | | scenario: You share a link with me, earn $0.50, i notice people | willing to pay for it. | | I then go on to create my own link once I have access to the | site. I now earn the money. | | I can also share the original link once I paid. | | This is also ripe for abuse because it intentionally hides the | original url, so it could be taking you to a scam site after a | paywall. Or worse, if you always conceal the original url, the | perfect way to get people to pay and put in their google | passwords into another site. | | I cannot see this being anything positive. | dotBen wrote: | If you want this functionality on a WordPress-powered site, which | is one of the use cases stated, this is the industry standard way | of doing this within the WP world: | | https://easydigitaldownloads.com/ | algo_trader wrote: | I dont understand this | | Is it a library/backend/hosted-form? (For just $499 - you save | $500!!!) | | Is it a payment gateway? Do they spare you the need for | pp/stripe/CC account ?! | | I cant possibly image what the other 90 plugins do... | mitchdoogle wrote: | It's a system for managing access to digital files on your | WordPress site. You have to have your own payment processor | and enter the API keys in the settings. The add-ons are | mostly API connections to other services, i.e. Dropbox, aws | or additional features. $500 is if you want everything and | have lots of sites. Probably only a developer would want | that. $100 is the basic set up. | | This is an alternative to something like woocommerce if you | only have digital merchandise, and makes restricting access | to files easy | Alifatisk wrote: | So this is like AdFly? | vyrotek wrote: | I'm surprised to see the concerns from other comments. | | Isn't this exactly how Gumroad started too right here on HN? | samwillis wrote: | Yes, this is exactly what they started with in 2011, see the | launch post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614 | | > Over this past weekend I had the idea to build a sort of link | shortener but with a payment system built-in. There have been | many times in the past where I wanted to share a link - on | Twitter or just through IM with a few friends - but did not | want to go through the overhead of setting up a whole store. | | All the same comments as here, but I suppose they ultimately | pivoted away from the link format. I suppose it's the perfect | MVP though! | xwdv wrote: | Those were different times. There's no more room for scrappy | products like that now. You can't just post an explainer video | with an email sign up and expect to become Dropbox. | | Lean startups have been rejected in favor of "Do all the big | work up front and then we'll see if we like it". It's MVP | fatigue. | SomeCallMeTim wrote: | No. Gumroad hosts and sells digital products from a store. | | This site...well, I can't even tell what it does aside from | creating a paywall link that requires $X to bypass. And on that | payment page there's no hint as to what you're buying. | | And after you've gotten a new link...then what? Someone can | just post that link everywhere? Or is there some kind of API | that unlocks a link? Or...? | | The service has very questionable usability. Gumroad has | _obvious_ utility. That 's the difference. | geysersam wrote: | I assume they won't just give you the link, only read the | content from the link and pass it on to you. | | Although, I haven't tried. | | Edit: I assumed wrong. | czx4f4bd wrote: | This is literally how Gumroad started, though. | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34068230 | Deegy wrote: | Quick and blunt piece of advice: you need to redesign your | website asap imo. It reminds me exactly of what a webpage looks | like once the hosting has expired on it. | | Very low trust for a service like yours. | | FWIW the content on it is great. Very concise and to the point. | It's just the look and feel I'm referring to. | terpimost wrote: | I'm ready to help with this. I think the idea is great. | [deleted] | urban_alien wrote: | Completely agree. I think part of it stems from looking | GoDaddy-ish. | [deleted] | synergy20 wrote: | How about an e-giftcard that is just a series of numbers and I | can use to purchase anything online without filling out my credit | info. | | e.g. I went to somewhere and bought an e-giftcard of $1000, I use | $100 of it to buy a licensed software and download it, I pay | another $50 for an online subscription,etc. | | So I do not need disclose my location and even my name when I do | not need to, this is basically a simple bitcoin-style-debit-card- | for-online-purchases. | | does such thing exist? any online stores accept that? if not why | not. | trothamel wrote: | At least in the US, convenience stores sell prepaid debit cards | that are basically this. | synergy20 wrote: | online store does not take it is the problem, plus I have to | go there to buy in the store. | byhemechi wrote: | you can buy visa/mastercard gift cards at supermarkets/ the | post office in australia. I am sure that there are similar | things in other parts of the world | synergy20 wrote: | that's the simplest way I assume and totally | anonymous/untraceable if I need it, thanks! | rajivm wrote: | Privacy.com is designed exactly for this purpose. You can | create as many service/purchase specific "debit cards" as you | want and set limits. At time of purchase, you can use any name | and address you want. | synergy20 wrote: | Thanks. I was unaware of it. | sneak wrote: | The terms of service for this offering require that you waive | your civil rights to a jury trial in event of any dispute. | | This is very common, but still rude. | 10g1k wrote: | Water literally falls from the sky, and people still sell bottles | of it. So yes, sell anything. | levpopov wrote: | Cool idea, but it'd be great to add an explanation for choosing | this over Stripe payment links | (https://stripe.com/payments/payment-links). For Stripe, you can | configure a redirect on success linking to your paid content so | it should work for most use cases paidlink covers, no? | pifm_guy wrote: | This is easier to set up. | | And stripes pay links are badly advertised. | Kiro wrote: | You still need to set up a Stripe account to use this. | [deleted] | nagyf wrote: | So how can I trust that after paying for the link, I will get the | content that was advertised? What happens if it just redirects me | to google.com after that? How do I get my money back? | | How do you ensure the paid links are safe to visit, and it won't | redirect me to a malicious website? | geysersam wrote: | If you trust the seller giving you the link, why would you | doubt you'll get the content after paying? | | Any link you click on a page could lead to a malicious site. | But again, if you trust the seller, why would you think they | would link you to a malicious site? | [deleted] | jamesrcole wrote: | Seems a similar issue to: how can you trust someone you buy a | physical product from online? | | Do they have a reputation? If a third party mediates the sale | (eg eBay) do they have policies in place to handle such issues? | behnamoh wrote: | > How do you ensure the paid links are safe to visit, and it | won't redirect me to a malicious website? | | Is it up to this website though? It's like asking URL | shorteners to check the malicious activity of original links. | jakelazaroff wrote: | You don't pay a URL shortener to redirect you. | TylerE wrote: | There's a number of shady "services" like AdFly that are | just that. | jakelazaroff wrote: | I guess people characterizing such services as "shady" is | probably a good reason to try and vet the links people | submit :) | [deleted] | aliqot wrote: | this isn't saying that the product is wrong, it's saying we | accept you and then offering a gentle gesture toward the | center of the circle to commence your nerd beatdown. this is | the initiation process. | | also we're nerds, we ask questions and shit. it's fine. | nobody means anything by it. | dale_glass wrote: | I think it is, supposing it wants to be useful. | | Imagine this catches on. Now I'm not sure why would it, but | let's suppose we have a paid link to a book, or song, or | download, or something else useful. If this link is ever | shared anywhere public, there's an incentive for spammers and | trolls to create their own links and try to get paid for | nothing. | | Probable end result: platforms start banning links to | paidlink.to, because a lot of people get cheated out of their | money. | cptaj wrote: | I think it can exist with the limited scope of not being | responsible for the content it redirects to. | | More cynically, if it catches on like you mentioned, the OP | probably already made a shit ton of money from a simple and | IMO elegant idea. | geysersam wrote: | You'll have to be sure to obtain the link from a credible | source. | | That's the same as for any other sale over the internet. | There are lots of fake web stores that scam people. | robertlagrant wrote: | It might make sense if the website let you log in directly and | manage your payments. Trust ratings on vendors, etc. | fishtoaster wrote: | You'd probably do a credit card chargeback - same as if someone | failed to provide any other good or service you bought online. | wpietri wrote: | The problem here is that credit card companies do not like | chargebacks in the least. A few too many and you'll see | penalties; more than that and you lose your merchant account. | Since there's no vetting here, this will be a magnet for both | the clueless and scammers, meaning that I think it's not long | for this world. | fishtoaster wrote: | That's a fair point. I'll be curious how they handle that. | Maybe you could get away with booting any user from the | platform whose links generate too many chargebacks? But | yeah, if paidlink.to is ineffective at preventing | chargebacks, they'll get booted from stripe or whoever. | pifm_guy wrote: | Which in turn will cost the paidlink service lots of money. A | chargeback typically costs $15 or so to process. | | I wonder how they'll police that? | tendiesfortwo wrote: | I like this idea but wouldn't it be really easy to bypass? Once | you pay for it, I imagine you get redirected and can just share | the final URL destination for free. | yamtaddle wrote: | AFAIK state-of-the-art is requesting a signed URL with a | timestamp from whatever system can verify you paid, then | presenting that to the file server, which validates the | signature and can also elect not to serve links with a too-old | timestamp (limiting the damage a leaked URL can do). | layer8 wrote: | For payed digital assets, usually the links are time-limited | and/or limited in the number of times you can download. | mikeiz404 wrote: | Can that be done for links to youtube and other platform | sites? | | It seems to do that securely requires proxying the resource | but that's not a great idea for platform content (It would | likely break the site: You would need to rewrite all static | and dynamic links to resources in order to host the platform | under a different domain. You would also be responsible for | bandwidth fees for relaying the content.) and redirecting | would expose the platform's open url to the resource. | soheil wrote: | They could fetch the content of the destination URL server side | and serve it under the generated paid URL. | | Don't ask me about CORS, XSS, CSRF... | TylerE wrote: | Let's be real, 99% of uses of this will be porn or malware | masquerading as warez. You do not want to be fetching those | URLs. Removes any plausible deniability. | fishtoaster wrote: | My guess is that this is that this is for use-cases where | that's not a big concern, or at least where that concern is | outweighed by the easy of use. | | Some examples off the top of my head: | | - I'm selling something to exactly one person - I met someone | on discord and I'll sell them a writeup on how to do X in | language Y for $5, or I'm selling an art commission or | something. I use this service to send them a link. | | - I'm selling a somewhat niche infoproduct - the "Expert's | guide to using jq to parse stripe data" or something. I expect | most people to find it via my blog or newsletter where I talk | about jq a lot. I don't think many people will pirate it and I | use this paid link to distribute it. | | - I'm selling something time-bound, like "Joe's guide to the | 2022 world cup tournament for programmers," and I expect that | I'll make whatever money I'm going to make on this guide pretty | quickly before people get around to sharing the link for free. | | - I'm selling something that's paid now, but that I plan to | make free next week. "Click this link to buy early access to my | yadayadayada!" | | If you want to actively prevent sharing of the post-paywall | content, Gumroad and plenty of other options already exist for | that use-case. | czx4f4bd wrote: | Yeah, this is it exactly. There are definitely valid | criticisms of this kind of tool, but people need to | understand that there are already a lot of small, niche | creators doing this kind of thing manually, e.g. by accepting | PayPal and manually emailing Google Drive links to | purchasers. | | These people obviously don't care much about piracy (and | probably don't need to, either) and don't seem interested in | setting up another service like Gumroad/Patreon/OnlyFans, so | being able to trivially automate their existing manual | processes sounds pretty handy. | marifjeren wrote: | Also: any use case where the final destination link contains | a one-time access code for something. | badrabbit wrote: | For third party sites like googledrive I think you're right but | if it is your own site, you can restrict based on referer. | bonyt wrote: | Even that is easily forged, although that takes care of some | casual sharing arguably. | badrabbit wrote: | Yeah, the argument I guess is most people won't go that far | over small payments like $2-5 kind of like how news sites | have a paywall you can bypass with archive.is | alexcroox wrote: | This is a no code solution | rozab wrote: | This is absolutely nothing new. Adfly (adf.ly) was the popular | version of this 10 years ago. Often modders would put their | mediafire links behind adfly to get a little revenue. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-20 23:00 UTC)