The Interledger Community 🌱: Tseli

Web Monetization updates Jan to Feb 2026

Tseli — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 16:00:06 +0000

We’re back at the Web Monetization station, and things are taking shape nicely!

In the first 45 days of 2026, we introduced mobile compatibility for the browser extension, started building a Web Monetization e-learning course, and made improvements to reduce friction as publishers integrate Web Monetization into their digital spaces online.

Browser Extension

Market Reach

With mobile devices accounting for over 60% of traffic on the web, the first step we’ve taken has been for the browser extension to include Android support. We shipped Firefox Android compatibility in v1.1.0.

User Experience

By accelerating how quickly the extension detects a web monetized website, and reducing the size of the extension, the extension has become faster and lighter.

Publisher Tools

Reduce Integration Friction

A publisher uses one of the interactive tools, a Banner or Widget generator, to generate a script for integrating a banner or widget on their website or blog. We have added links to documentation that give context to how a script works, and additional information to guide script placement within the website’s <body>.

In-Browser Implementation

The prototype continues to take shape, and we’ve implemented configurable logic enabling users to configure delays between payments and the amount for each browser session.

Education

We’ve begun developing a beginner-friendly introductory course on Web Monetization focusing on a non-technical, business-oriented audience. The course covers the what, why, and how of Web Monetization.

What’s on the horizon?

There are more good things to look out for, in the coming weeks:

A prototype to demonstrate how a publisher that uses Google Ad Manager can integrate Web Monetization as one of their Google Offerwall payment options.
More on analytics capabilities for the browser extension.

Before we sign off, we have a small (okay, maybe moderately sized) favor to ask folks with an Android phone:

If you have the Firefox browser, please install the latest version of the Web Monetization browser extension (from the Firefox add-ons page), and see how the extension works, on your phone.

Until the next go-round!

Web Monetization: October & November Recap

Tseli — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 20:13:49 +0000

This edition zooms into the world of Web Monetization in October and November 2025.

Good things from…

We had some fantastic contributions for Hacktoberfest. A total of 30 contributions were completed, and about a third of them were for Web Monetization.

Overall, 13 individuals contributed to 10 projects.

A massive shout-out to our 2025 contributors from India, Tunisia and Poland! We hope to see you again next year, and bring a friend…we want to take this to the next level.

Growing the community

We connected with developers, browser-makers, W3C members and open source enthusiasts across 3 continents, making the case for open standards such as Web Monetization, and discussing the future of open source software.

30-31 October: At JSConf Mexico in Guadalajara, Marian Villa (DevRel) spoke about why Interledger cares about bridging the gap between fintech solutions and open source software. Alex Lakatos (CTO) spoke about what it means to "pay the web forward" and our vision for Web Monetization as a standard. Ioana Chiorean (Engineering Manager) attended the conference, making valuable connections and forging a pathway for Web Monetization awareness and adoption in Latin America.
7 November: At MozFest in Barcelona, Santosh Viswanatham (Interledger community member) spoke about what makes Web Monetization a viable option for revenue for independent owners, creators and open-source maintainers.
10 November: Sid Vishnoi (Senior Engineer), Alexander Surkov (Senior Engineer), Ioana Chiorean (Engineering Manager) and Alex Lakatos (CTO) spoke to web standard enthusiasts at TPAC in Kobe. The team showcased our work, in partnership with Igalia, to enable the Chromium browser to natively support Web Monetization, without the need for a plugin.
13 November: On the GitHub community's Jueves de Quack con Interledger Marian Villa (DevRel) spoke about the future of open payments and how Interledger drives digital financial inclusion through open standards such as Web Monetization.
18 November: Alex Lakatos also spoke at CTO Craft Con: Financial Services in London about Interledger’s community focused, open source approach to collaborating and building trusted software for the financial sector.

🧰 Tools for publishers

On the software front, we addressed bugs and added UX improvements to the publisher tools:

Enhancing accessibility for input fields. This makes the tools more responsive to keyboards, screen readers or other accessibility aids.
Making it simpler and faster to preview a Banner or Widget.
Using polling for the Widget to verify payment completion.
Ensuring that the tools are fully responsive when resized on any device.
Enhancing error handling when the Widget and Banner generators save or retrieve wallet configuration.
Improving code reusability and maintainability by restructuring how the Widget uses Open Payments into modular, logically organized components.

Browser extension for supporters

Incremental improvements and highlights for the browser extension include:

Support for the MMAON digital wallet.
Improved performance and error handling.
A new consent screen that shows users what data the extension shares and allows users to give their consent.
Publishing the extension on the Safari app store, which takes the number of browsers with Web Monetization support to 4 (i.e Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari).

WordPress plugin

Lastly, the WordPress plugin for Web Monetization now has user docs that guide publishers from installing to configuring the plugin on a WordPress a site.

That's all for this edition. Thanks for reading.

Web Monetization updates for August and September 2025

Tseli — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:16:24 +0000

The wider ILF Tech Team rolled up their sleeves to help us unearth bugs 🐞🔍 and issues for the Web Monetization publisher tools, and the revamped website. The most common issues were about accessibility and the user experience.

🧰 For publishers

For a quick intro or refresher about the publisher tools, check out July’s blog.

Improvements and fixes for the Banner and Widget tools:

Accessibility improved such that:
- The close button is clearly visible on any background.
- The custom builder is fully responsive on mobile and desktop, supporting screen readers and keyboard navigation.
Text customization is now consistent on both mobile and desktop, including unlimited text resizing.
The text visibility toggle and the thumbnail toggle now work as expected.
Banner customization allows multiple types of animation.
Editing the name of a config tab now restricts the use of spaces and special characters.
The correct message is shown before overriding current with a previously saved config.
Users now receive visual feedback when copying a script.
Editing an existing banner that is on a publisher's website now immediately applies the changes to the website.

Highlighting improvements and fixes to the RevShare tool:

Security checks now confirm that wallet addresses are valid, and only resolve with a valid wallet address response.
Improved navigation in the Tools drop-down on mobile—focus now moves to a specific menu item instead of the entire list.
When configuring the table of sharing recipients:
- The percentage field is now read-only.
- Table resizing is now consistent on desktop and mobile, with the table maintaining a minimum of 2 rows.

A notable enhancement to the WordPress plug-in was:

Allowing a user to add multiple wallet addresses across the entire website, where previously only one could be added.

For supporters

The browser extension now includes minor bug fixes and an enhancement, released in 0.9.2.1 to 0.10.0.0. The most notable were:

Disconnecting from a wallet now offers the option to force a disconnect, useful if a wallet has since become inactive.
A consent screen that new users will immediately see after installing the extension. Existing users will be required to give their approval when there is a change in the policy. The reason for this work is that we want to be clear and upfront with users about which information is collected and how it is used. This complements the existing consent screen where users can optionally agree to automate key addition, when connecting a wallet.

💻 Ready for Hacktoberfest?

Before you go, are you, or anyone you know, participating in Hacktoberfest? We’d love for you to help us improve the Web Monetization project by tackling issues at:

Every contribution makes a difference—let's build something great together!

Join our community meetings

Web Monetization community calls are open to the public, and you’re invited! The next one is on October 9th, 2025.

Find your timezone ▶️ Add to your Google Calendar ▶️ Join the meeting

Until next time, come back soon!

Web Monetization in July 2025

Tseli — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 13:59:21 +0000

Welcome to the Web Monetization station! The month of July was about 3 things:

Testing and levelling up the publisher tools.
Introducing Chimoney digital wallet support.
Polishing the browser extension, and adding Safari browser compatibility.

Check this out…

The browser extension

We're working on Safari browser support for the extension. While it isn’t yet officially available, you can set up a local development environment, install it on Safari, and test it out.

We improved functionality across all browsers so that when connecting a wallet, the extension now:

Avoids overriding user-entered amounts with default budget suggestions.
Correctly handles errors during the connection process, after user consent for key-addition.
Immediately opens a new tab with the intended web page, instead of opening an empty tab first.

The extension has also improved payment handling so that:

At least one payment session must be ready before a website is shown as monetized.
A monetization session properly resumes if a revoked key gets re-added to the wallet.
The monetization state gets properly managed or cleared when pages reload, unload, or when sessions pause and resume.

💰 Digital wallets

Chimoney is a digital wallet that has added support for Web Monetization. You can now sign up for a Chimoney wallet to:

Connect your Chimoney wallet address to your browser extension, and start paying web monetized sites.
Receive Web Monetization payments into your Chimoney wallet.

🧰 Publisher Tools

The publisher tools are for anyone that owns or publishes content on the internet, no matter the size of their audience. The tools make it simple and quick to start getting paid with Web Monetization.

How do the publisher tools work?

To get paid with Web Monetization, you need a way to receive Web Monetization payments. A compatible digital wallet makes this possible—this is the financial account that holds your funds.

Sign up for an account with a digital wallet provider.
Find your wallet address. Some wallets call this a payment pointer.

Example of a wallet address:
https://walletprovider.com/MyWallet

Example of payment pointer:
$anotherwalletprovider.org/YourWallet

💡 Once you have a wallet address or payment pointer, you can use the publisher tools. 💡

The Link tag generator

Use this tool to create a short piece of code, an HTML tag, which enables Web Monetization on your website.

Input: your wallet address
Output: your monetization link tag
What next? Go to your website's HTML file and add the generated link tag into the <head> section.
Result: Once this is done, your website is Web Monetization enabled.

The Banner generator

Build a banner for your website, inviting your audience to use Web Monetization to support your work.

Input:
- your wallet address
- choose and preview the format and styling for your banner
Output: your banner in HTML form
What next? Copy the script to your website’s HTML page, into the section.
Result: Anyone visiting your site is shown the banner. Only visitors that already have the Web Monetization browser extension installed will not see the banner.

The RevShare generator

If you publish or own a website that has multiple contributors, you can use the probabilistic revenue share generator (RevShare) to share earnings between the contributors.

Input:
- the wallet addresses of all contributors
- the percentage weighting you assign to each contributor
Output: an HTML link tag that contains a unique URL
What next? Copy the link tag to your website’s HTML page
Result: Each time someone visits your site, one wallet is chosen at random, from a list of the contributor wallet addresses. The probability of one contributor being chosen over the others is based on the weightings you assigned each contributor.

WordPress plugin for Web Monetization

The new Web Monetization plugin for WordPress isn’t yet available on the WordPress marketplace, but it is coming soon. You can install it manually from the source, to test: https://github.com/interledger/web-monetization-wordpress-plugin/

With the plugin, you can:

Enable Web Monetization to pay contributors to different posts and pages.
Show a banner on your site, inviting your audience to support your work by using Web Monetization.

Join us, please

You’re invited to the next Web Monetization Community Call is on August 14th, 2025.
Check your timezone
Add to your Google Calendar
Meeting link: https://meet.google.com/fjy-vjef-ogj

Come build with us on GitHub by contributing to these:

That’s it for this month! See you next time.

Web Monetization updates for June 2025

Tseli — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 11:23:15 +0000

Planet Web Monetization welcomes you!

🔊 Community and Advocacy

It feels like we’ve been around the world since our previous update.

Pixel Pioneers Bristol

On June 20th, Pixel Pioneers Bristol hosted about 130 web enthusiasts, designers, digital makers, and front-end developers. Rabeb Othmani, Product Manager, gave an electrifying lightning talk, and Senior Engineer, Adrian Boros hosted a booth. Bibi and Adi spoke about our vision for Web Monetization to enrich the way people support the work of publishers and owners of content online…thus “paying the Web forward”.

Inclusive growth at FinTech Summit Africa

“Innovating for inclusive growth” was the theme at the FinTech Summit Africa, hosted in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 26th. Tseli Thabane, Project Manager, joined a panel discussion about why we believe that real-time systems, digital currencies, and cross-border solutions matter in shaping the future of payments. We shared perspectives about open technologies and open source software being instrumental in creating a more inclusive digital financial ecosystem.

UCT x ILF Bootcamp and Hackathon

On June 27th, Sid Vishnoi, Senior Engineer, gave an insightful talk to a group of about 60 students in Cape Town, South Africa. Sid walked the group through how the Web Monetization extension uses Open Payments to facilitate micropayments. This was one of the examples used to inspire creativity about using Open Payments at a hackathon hosted by the University of Cape Town Financial Innovation Hub.

Hackathon Build with AI Bolivia 2025

Between June 27th and the 29th, Marian Villa, Developer Advocate, gave a dynamic talk in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, at Hackathon Build with AI Bolivia. Marian invited students to take a more expansive view about how Large Language Models (LLMs) can unlock innovation that sustains the Web using open technologies like Web Monetization. With over 400 participants and organizers hosted by Universidad Católica Boliviana (UCB), this was Bolivia’s largest hackathon to date, celebrating the launch of the university’s undergraduate program in Artificial Intelligence.

🧰 Building the Software

Publisher Tools

We already have a set of tools available for publishers and owners of content to quickly start using Web Monetization:

Link Tag Generator
Banner Generator
Revenue Share Generator

Banner, Link Tag and Revenue Share Generator

We are making it simpler for developers to start contributing to the publisher tools codebase, while making it easier to maintain. The initial steps were to:

Overhaul the architecture and restructure the codebase to follow the structure of more mature and stable code repositories.
Simplify the release process by using Cloudflare, instead of using Docker containers in a Kubernetes cluster.

WordPress plugin for Web Monetization

We are working on a Web Monetization plugin for WordPress. The plugin is a free and open-source must-have for WordPress website builders and publishers to enable Web Monetization. It gives control for web monetizing a page, or individual posts such that individual authors or contributors can get paid directly.

The Web Monetization Extension

Improvements worth highlighting were for connecting a wallet to the extension, and making continuous payments.

Connecting a wallet

Before connecting a wallet

The extension now suggests a default budget based on the currency of the wallet. A user can still change this value. Previously, the extension would suggest a default budget of 5. The extension now considers the buying power of different currencies.

After connecting a wallet

The extension settings now display the same wallet address entered when connecting the wallet. Previously, the wallet identifier was displayed, but this introduced confusion whenever a wallet identifier differed from the wallet address entered when connecting the wallet.

Continuous payments

Previously, the extension triggered payments simultaneously to many wallets, followed by long wait times between payments. Now, the extension pays each receiving wallet on a web page, one after the other, until all wallets are paid. Then, it cycles through the process from the beginning.

Embedded content

To protect a web monetized page from possible malicious behaviour where embedded content adds hundreds of monetization tags with the aim of taking a larger portion of the payments, the extension now prioritizes paying the main page. Here is an example page that has five monetization link tags, where two tags are on the main page, and three tags are in the embedded iframe.

The extension now handles continuous payments like this:

Pay each receiving wallet on the main page, one at a time.
For a container with web monetized embedded content, pay only one of the receiving wallets in the container, then continue paying the main page.
In the next cycle, repeat paying each wallet on the main page. For the embedded container, skip the wallet that was paid in the previous cycle, and pay the next wallet in the container.

One-time payments

Previously, 0.02 was the minimum amount possible for all one-time payments. The limitation has been removed, and the extension allows any amount supported by the connected wallet, and the receiving wallet.
When a web page has multiple receiving wallets, the extension now splits the amount between the receiving wallets such that the extension does not exceed the amount entered. If any wallet is unable to receive its portion of the split amount, then the extension skips that payment.

Improved performance

The extension is more efficient and consumes less power by:

Removing unnecessary network requests when connecting a wallet.
Using a single payment timer within a browser tab. Previously, an open tab used multiple payment timers for each individual monetization tag found on a web page. This is no longer the case.

What’s next?

We are revamping the publisher tools with the intention to give them a shared and refined visual identity.
We're also working on bringing the Web Monetization extension to the Safari browser. Stay close for more on this!

Join us, please

You’re invited to the next Web Monetization Community Call is on July 17th.

Please check your timezone
Add to your Google Calendar
Use this meeting link: https://meet.google.com/fjy-vjef-ogj

Come build with us on GitHub by contributing to these:

good-first-issues for the Publisher tools
good-first-issues for the Web Monetization extension

Thanks for reading. See you next time!

Web Monetization updates for May 2025

Tseli — Thu, 22 May 2025 13:04:15 +0000

Welcome to the Web Monetization station!

🔊Community and Advocacy

Conference

On April 25th, our very own Peter-Paul Koch, who focuses on Developer Relations, spoke about how to Pay the Web forward with Web Monetization at the CityJS London conference.

Engineer, Darian Avasan, did a great job showcasing our new tools that make it quick and easy for publishers and creators to get started with Web Monetization.

Anna Sheard, our Director of Communications was also in the house making meaningful JS community connections and discussing why we care about paying the Web forward.

Work week

From May 6th to the 8th, the city of Cluj in Romania hosted 14 people who met in-person, with 5 people joining virtually. Our intention was to align on key topics, collaboratively define future products and features, and to use the benefit of focused, face-to-face discussion and design sessions to make progress on critical decisions. More on this soon 😉

The Web Monetization Extension

Every 2 weeks, a new Web Monetization extension release brings enhancements and bug fixes to make using the extension smoother. In April, GateHub digital wallets added support for Web Monetization. The latest extension version, v0.7.1, released on May 12th, includes improved handling of web monetized embedded content, and allowing more currencies.

Embedded content

A web page can have embedded content that changes periodically, like stock market data. If the embedded content adds or changes its web monetization tags a little while after the page loads, the extension now correctly detects the monetization changes whenever they happen. Additionally, the extension now checks embedded content for multiple monetization link tags, instead of just checking for the first one.

Currency codes

Previously, the extension handled a maximum length of 3 for a currency code, for example USD or ZAR. Typically, currencies adhere to the ISO4217 standard, so they have a maximum length of 3. Non-standard currencies, on the other hand, can have a longer or shorter code. So, we removed the length constraint such that the extension can handle non-standard currency codes.

Monetized websites

To enhance the developer experience, the extension now handles localhost websites that are monetized, without needing an https://

Digital wallets

GateHub recently added Web Monetization support to their digital wallets. To recap, GateHub is a digital wallet provider that provides the financial account for anyone to send or receive payments.

Why does this matter?

Website visitors can now sign up for a GateHub wallet, and use it with the Web Monetization extension to pay.
Publishers or anyone who wants to get paid with Web Monetization, can now sign up for a GateHub wallet, and use it as the receiving wallet on a web page.

Did you know that EU and non-EU residents can sign up for a GateHub wallet?
Drop a comment if you answered yes 😉

🧰Publisher Tools

Banner tool

With the Banner tool you can easily create a script to web monetize a site, and display a customizable banner inviting visitors to support you. Previously, the Banner tool was unable to generate the script for ilp.dev payment pointers. The tool now correctly handles payment pointers that belong to the ilp.dev domain.

What’s next?

UI and UX redesign to align the visual identity of the Publisher tools.
Overhaul and simplify the architecture of the Publisher tools to improve code maintainability and simplify the deployment process.
Expand the tools to give publishers the option to add a customizable widget or a button to encourage their audience to support them.
Improve how the extension pays a web page that has a large number of receiving wallets.

You're invited

We want you to be part of our open source community 📖, and we would love your contributions. Please do connect with us in 3 spaces:

We have Community Calls on the 2nd and 4th Thursday, every month. The next one is on May 22nd. Check your time zone and use this meeting link: https://meet.google.com/fjy-vjef-ogj
For the Web Monetization extension, contribute to these good-first-issues on GitHub.
Follow Web Monetization tools for publishers on GitHub.

Web Monetization updates March and April 2025

Tseli — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 18:02:38 +0000

We are BIG hyped, not just hyped, about publicly announcing the beta release of the Web Monetization browser extension on March 24th! And, because good things come in threes, the extension was accompanied by a more extensive docs site, and a beta release of tools for Web Monetization publishers. Yeah! 💃🎉

📣 Community and Dev Advocacy

@ppk began a series of small, informal user interviews in March, talking to developers in India, Europe, and North America that want to start using Web Monetization. The goal of the interviews has been to discover pain points and anything that has been unclear about Web Monetization. We want to know how to improve information flow and to make resources more meaningful.

What would you like to better understand about Web Monetization?

🧰 Publisher tools

We released a collection of tools, still in beta, to support content owners or publishers, and developers to web monetize their work. You can:

Use the Link generator to create the link tag to add to web pages you want to monetize.
Create and add a banner to encourage your audience to support your work with Web Monetization.

What other tools would be useful to a content owner or developer starting to use Web Monetization?

📖 Documentation

Our revamped documentation site dedicates a section to content consumers, and to content owners. The goal is to make it easier to quickly find what you need. Plus, there is a treasure trove of developer resources. Learn how to link a wallet to monetize a web page. Explore tutorials on different ways websites can respond when receiving Web Monetization payments.

The Browser Extension

We had beta version releases on March the 3rd, 17th and 31st. The releases included performance boosts for faster response times. They also improved the user’s experience when getting started and fixed a few bugs.

🔧 Improvements

Connect a wallet: We added a timeout to avoid getting stuck indefinitely if something goes wrong when you connect the extension to your wallet.
Pay monetized pages: Embedding multimedia, forms or maps on your web page? We’ve improved how quickly the extension checks if a page is monetized, and how it handles content within those pages. This accurately calculates and distributes payments to all wallets, including those for embedded content.
Smaller and faster: Improved how quickly the extension installs by replacing bulkier components with light-weight alternatives for the front-end. The extension should now feel more responsive, using less memory.

🐛 Bug Fixes

Message displayed: When you open a blank tab or new window in a browser, the extension now recognizes an empty tab or new window consistently across all browsers. Previously, the extension displayed an incorrect message about browser internal pages for a new Firefox window.

Unable to pay a web monetized site: Accurately detect situations where your extension’s wallet is unable to pay a website. For example, visiting a site that receives real money when your extension is connected to a test wallet that works with fake money. In this case, the extension icon must appear with an amber exclamation point. Opening the extension must display the message “This page cannot receive payments from your wallet at this time. Please check back later.”

What’s next?

Building more tools to make it faster and simpler for publishers and owners of content to web monetize their work.
Improving how the extension handles:
Paying a site that has a large number of receiving wallets…stay tuned for more about why this matters.
Paying a web monetized site that has embedded multimedia, maps or forms when the embedded item is also web monetized, with multiple receiving wallets of its own.

Before we go, listen up…we are still calling all developers, testers and technical writers to join the Web Monetization community!

Our work is open source. Our community calls are open to the public, and we'd love your contributions. Please connect with us in 3 places:

This April we have Community Calls on the 10th and 24th. Check your timezone, and join on Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/fjy-vjef-ogj
Contribute to these good-first-issues in the Web Monetization browser extension GitHub repo.
Follow Web Monetization Publisher Tools on GitHub…we’ll soon have juicy good-first-issues for you to tackle.

Until next time.

Web Monetization updates February 2025

Tseli — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 12:43:00 +0000

Time really does fly!

We rolled out two releases of the extension in February, the 3rd and 7th, and one on March 3rd.

🔧 Improvements

The team has been adding improvements, all to make your experience with the Web Monetization extension smoother and more enjoyable!

Onboarding

When you install the extension for the first time, you'll find an improved onboarding screen that makes getting started easier by showing all the supported digital wallets.

Connecting your wallet

When connecting your extension to your wallet:

We immediately show that you're connecting. Previously, we would wait for 2 seconds before connecting, but that wait was a little confusing.
When you let the extension automatically configure your wallet with the key of your extension, we now show each step of the process for at least 2 seconds. We slowed this down so you can clearly see what’s happening.
If you switch to some other tab, and then click the extension icon in the browser toolbar, we’ll highlight the tab where the connection process is taking place. All this should help you manage your tabs better, and keep track of the wallet connection process.
We now show the current step of the wallet connection process within the extension. Previously, opening the extension while the wallet was busy connecting meant you’d just see a spinning wheel, leaving you guessing. Now, we show you exactly what's happening, so you're in the loop every step of the way.

🐛 Bug Fixes

On top of the improvements, the team has been squashing bugs and taking names.

Connect a wallet and browse

You can now safely press Enter to submit the form when connecting your wallet to the extension, making it easier than before when you had to click outside the input box to proceed.

Interrupting monetization

We stabilized the effects of moving back and forth between pages, or getting a notification popup from another site or extension. Earlier, doing so mistakenly marked a monetized website as non-monetized which interrupted payments from the extension. That is no longer the case.

Say your computer goes to sleep while you have several web pages open on your browser. When your computer wakes up, monetized websites used to get marked as non-monetized as you continued to browse. And this would stop payments. Now you should see the correct monetized page status, and payments will resume on wake-up.

Finally, switching between monetized and non-monetized pages means the extension checks when to resume paying as you browse. Sometimes, the extension would be ready to start paying before the underlying payment session was ready to send money from your wallet to the site. The underlying payment session now makes outgoing payments when the payment session is ready.

Get involved

Are you a developer, a tester or technical writer?
Our work is open source. We’d love for you to get involved.
🌱 Join us on GitHub to contribute to some of these good-first-issues

Web Monetization updates for January 2025

Tseli — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:19:39 +0000

We start 2025 with a little something extra ✨ in our step, thanks to a wave of activities in the Web Monetization space.

Our community of contributors and dedicated development team have been working non-stop. We’d like to highlight 3 things:

Testing the Web Monetization browser extension, finding and resolving bugs to improve the experience of getting started and to make the extension more reliable.
Updating the documentation site on how to enable wallet linking such that podcasts, RSS feeds, and social web applications can be web monetized.
Speaking at FOSDEM in Brussels, Europe’s largest open source software conference, held on February 1st and 2nd. More about this in our upcoming update for February.

Community activity

Did you know that our community meetings are open to the public?

They’re held every 2 weeks, on a Thursday. We will meet today, 13 February 2025 at 4pm (UTC+2hrs), and the next one is on 27 February. Check your timezone here.

If you, or someone you know want to explore how Web Monetization can enable you to receive support and get paid on your website, or for anything you publish online, then please join our community calls on this link: https://meet.google.com/fjy-vjef-ogj

We had 2 community calls in January, in which:

We had a “bug-bash” to unearth issues and gather feedback from testing the extension.
Jeremiah Lee led a discussion on gearing up for web monetized podcasts, RSS feeds, and social web applications. Step 1 was all about how creators or owners can link their podcast or RSS feed content to their wallets to get paid using Web Monetization. We have handy guides covering 3 common formats: RSS 2.0 (podcasts), Atom (standardized “RSS”), and JSON Feed (next gen “RSS”). On a related note, we also have a guide for web monetizing content on social web applications that use the Activity Streams 2.0 format.

Updates to the browser extension

The Web Monetization browser extension is taking shape nicely. You can check out the v0.5.0.1 release notes.

By the way, if you are technically inclined (and are feeling adventurous), why not download and test a nightly build? It’s a version of the extension built at the end of each day. It’s not fully polished, and not yet ready for public release, but it’s a cool way to get a sneak peek of fixes and new features in the works. As a contributor, you might’ve worked on something that was accepted, but isn’t yet ready for full release on the browser stores. This is a great way to preview 🔮 your contribution, in action!

In the latest release, v0.5.0.1, we introduced changes that make getting started with the extension easier, fixed bugs and expanded testing, making the extension more reliable.

Changes that impact getting started:

After you install the extension, a new step-by-step guide helps you set up and connect your extension to your wallet so you can quickly start to pay web monetized sites.

Changes that impact when and how much to pay:

Disable the extension from paying any web monetized site with just one-click.
Reliably work out when, how much, and how often to pay a monetized website by improving continuous payments and validating the different ways that a web page can be web monetized.

Changes that impact the user experience:

Configure the extension when you are on any site, not just web monetized sites.
When connecting your extension to your wallet, the extension now appears and behaves consistently for any Web browser. The browser popup will no longer be in the way.

Helpful tools for Web Monetization

If you have a website or publish anything online, you can let your supporters know that there are different ways to support your work.
We have an alpha release for tools that you can use to:

Show a banner on your website inviting your supporters to use the Web Monetization browser extension to support your work.
Add a widget to your website or blog that gives people an immediate way to support your work when they don’t have the browser extension.

We anticipate bold moves in 2025, to get Web Monetization into as many hands as possible! Come with us. If you want a quick guide on how to web monetize your site, check out this great guide.

If you’re a developer, join us on GitHub.
We are open source, so why not contribute to these good-first-issues?

Web Monetization updates for October 2024

Tseli — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 14:05:23 +0000

In our world of Web Monetization, the month of October has been about 3 major things:

Expanding Web browser support for the extension.
Improving user experience for the browser extension.
Preparation and showcasing the browser extension at the 2024 Interledger Summit.

Come on, let's take a closer look 👀

Improve the UX and UI

The testing feedback focused our energy on improving how users setup the Web Monetization browser extension.
We have:

Simplified the steps for users to get started. Once the extension is installed, a user can automate the initial configuration between the extension and the user’s digital wallet, or choose to follow a manual setup process.
Improved how the extension validates user input.
Refined error messages, and how they are handled.

Expand browser support

The Web Monetization extension is now compatible with the Microsoft Edge Web browser. This puts the tally of Web browser support at 4: Firefox, Chrome, Vivaldi, and MS Edge.

We are actively increasing browser support, so let us know what other browsers we should adopt next! Keep an eye on this space!

Improve settings

We designed a simpler experience for viewing or changing your Web Monetization settings. For example, now it is easier to see that the hourly rate of pay for Web Monetization applies to any monetized website that you visit.

From the Interledger Summit

We wrapped October up beautifully with our very own Rabeb Othmani, Product Manager, and Radu Popa , Software Engineer, giving a live demo and sharing updates about Web Monetization extension at the Interledger Summit. It was an awesome presentation, and I invite you to relive the experience here (from about 38 minutes)! The discussions about the extension and Web monetization continued afterward, in the halls and at the open sessions.

If you have any questions related to the demo or Web Monetization in general, you can add them here.

So, “where to from here?”

We are getting the Web Monetization extension ready for public beta release. Are you excited for it, as we are? You will be able to download the extension from your favourite Web browser store, and put it to the test. We cannot wait to reach more users and gather your feedback!

One last thing 🔊

Did you know that everyone is welcome to join the Web Monetization community call? We discuss all things Web Monetization, from the browser extension to product strategy, to the Web Monetization specification, conferences, and everything in between. These are held twice a month, and I invite you to join us.

Link for the video call here: https://meet.google.com/fjy-vjef-ogj
If you want to stay in touch with all the work at the Interledger Foundation, you can subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
Please, and thank you 😉

Web Monetization September 2024 Updates

Tseli — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 19:21:46 +0000

As mentioned in our August update, we are working on the Web Monetization browser extension, a secure way to support the work of creators, authors and owners of the content you love on the internet…removing dependence on subscriptions or revenue-sharing platforms.

To learn more about Web Monetization, check the documentation here.

This past month has been about testing and improving the extension.

Beta release

We made an early beta release of the Web Monetization extension on 21 August 2024. Our intention was to gather feedback from even more people.

A BIG thank you, folks!

We have learned some really good lessons:

Getting started needs to be a breeze: The simpler and quicker the onboarding process is, the better.
Documentation to support getting started: Documentation and resources that are easy to find, and understand are valuable enablers for getting started.
Collaboration with digital wallet providers: Closely supporting users when they sign up for a digital wallet helps remove barriers to getting started with the extension.

So, we have prioritized work that focuses on:

Working closely with the digital wallet providers to give quick and responsive support when users sign up for a wallet.
Enhancing user experience (UX) such that using the extension is simple and intuitive.
Helpful documentation for getting started.

Work on the extension

Updates that impact UX and what you see:

Clearly show where the extension needs user input.
Improve the extension’s messages to be clearer and more concise. Let the icon of the extension attract the user’s attention only when necessary.
Improve messaging when you try to use the extension on a non-https website.

Updates that impact when to pay:

Support paying multiple websites at once, for browsers that allow viewing multiple pages at once. This applies when using the split-screen view in Microsoft Edge, or the tab-tiling feature of the Vivaldi browser.

Updates that impact testing and the developer experience:

Continuous integration (CI) to automate creating nightly builds of the extension. You can now try the cutting-edge version of the extension without needing to build it yourself.
Automated end-to-end testing in different browsers. Whenever code changes are made, they must pass all of the automated unit and end-to-end tests. This gives a good baseline for regression testing.

Updates that impact documentation:

Improved documentation to support getting started, and testing the extension.

We can’t wait for you to get your hands on the extension and experience the magic of Web Monetization 🔋…come back soon!

In the meantime, help us build the extension on GitHub

Web Monetization August 2024 Updates

Tseli — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 17:09:31 +0000

Community updates

In July, we had the pleasure to meet, in Slovenia, with 15 people from the Web Monetization community and Interledger Foundation. Our gracious host was GateHub, a provider of Web Monetization-compatible wallets.

We had a packed agenda about how to

bring Web Monetization to new audiences, creating a revolutionary way to pay for content [on the Web], beyond paywalls and subscriptions.
-- Alex Lakatos, CTO at Interledger

Read all about the July Web Monetization work-week here.

Changes to the extension

About 50% of our tasks, from July to early August, dealt with payments, and 25% were about user experience (UX).

Impacts when and how much to pay

Currency conversion: Handle currency conversion such that the extension sends no less than the minimum amount that a receiving wallet can handle.
Over-paying:
- Prevent over-paying when a site is refreshed repeatedly by taking the most recent payment timestamp into account.
- Send the most recent monetization event on a refresh so that the website can keep exclusive content unlocked until the next payment.
Improvements:
- Ensure that the extension does not attempt to pay a wallet address if its monetization link tag is disabled.
- Resume payment sessions for continuous payments if a user opens a monetized website, moves away, and then returns to it.
- If processing a continuous payment fails, immediately attempt to make the next payment, instead of waiting for the time dictated by rate-of-pay.
- If an outgoing payment from the sender wallet fails because of an issue with the token issued to the extension, the extension must attempt to rotate the token, and then resume payments.

Impacts UX and what you see

Available balance: Display the remaining balance of the authorized amount from the connected wallet.
Insufficient funds: Handle depleted funds with an alert, and give the option to top-up funds. You can also top-up one-time, and use those funds until your recurring budget is available again.
Messages: Improve warnings and errors to be more meaningful, for example display a warning if unpeered wallet providers prevent the extension from paying a monetized website.
Wallet connection:
- Allow the extension to accept a payment pointer ($) or wallet address when connecting a wallet, and update the UI to indicate the same.
- Alert the user that the extension will not work if its public key is not available to the connected wallet.
Icons: Enhance the states to indicate (a) when the extension is actively paying a monetized site, (b) when continuous payments are enabled or disabled, and (c) alert the user when an action needs to be taken.

Impacts Testing

Web Monetization Playground: The new playground for testing Web Monetization (here it is) helps you, as a tester, to quickly:
- Setup a monetized website with as many receiving wallets as you want.
- Use receiving wallet addresses or payment pointers that you control (using test or real wallets).
- Watch how and when each receiving wallet gets paid, as you use the extension.
- Observe how the extension behaves when a monetized website has different combinations of wallet addresses.

This is awesome because...

You can now test the extension on a website that you control, where you can quickly change the conditions for Web Monetization.

Before you go, please get ready to take Web Monetization for a spin.
Step 1: Signup for a compatible wallet from GateHub or Fynbos.