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882 sats \ 6 replies \ @justin_shocknet 11 Aug \ on: Production L402 Payment Protocol Use Cases bitcoin
I think it's a meme more than it's actually useful
For those that don't know, 402 is an HTTP status code for 'payment required' that's ancient but has never really been used because we've never had internet native money
Lightning Lab's meme'd it into a thing using their macaroon authentication for lnd (and a separate reverse proxy for for the edge)
It would seem obvious with Lightning as internet native payments to finally hermit crab itself into that old http status code... but I think it's an antiquated idea.
Anything interactive is using websockets at this point, not straight http. Even if it did use straight http, you're likely still dealing with another microservice to deliver whatever the purchase authenticated... is a re-arch of that worthwhile just to use these macaroons when you're probably achieving the same thing with a webhook/jwt etc?
Not to mention the clients, there's no native client for it in any browser or anything, so you're going to emulate a websocket in javascript in your front end anyway.
It's just not as exciting as people want it to be... Native internet payments are exciting, not http status codes...
Go unlock a video at Lightning.Video and tell me how http and macaroons would make that better for anyone?
This isn't even getting into the rabbit hole of Nostr static payment codes (soon:tm)
Am I wrong Jordi? @fewsats
You mention Lightning Labs and LND, but for completeness and to mention real production use cases:
Their L402 proxy, Aperture, has been used in front of their Loop and Pool services for years. The client for each of those managed the service-specific macaroons.
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Didn't know they used it in loop but that makes sense as that also has its own client in litd
Ironically that's not even a web service 🤣
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Yeah it’s not built into any general web clients to my knowledge, so you need a custom client, but it has been used in production since 2020.
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I think it's a meme more than it's actually useful
No no, we are serious! Check out https://L402.org
is a re-arch of that worthwhile just to use these macaroons
The answer is NO and that's why we are not seeing it happen.
Not to mention the clients
BIG chicken and egg problem. The only way around seems to be to actually focus on a niche and let people know "this is our official client but you can build your own". Data applications (a Bloomberg like terminal that can add third party sources with a standard protocol for data, visualizations and payments) may be the killer app to start growing the ecosystem... but it still remains be seen.
Go unlock a video at Lightning.Video and tell me how http and macaroons would make that better for anyone?
You are a bit off here though. You are thinking "people who want to consume my videos can go to my platform and watch them". If you paywall them using the L402 standard, people in MY PAGE (or any other) can watch your videos while you get paid.
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people in MY PAGE (or any other)
Yea protocolization is definitely better than not... but this is where nostr (sockets) are going too...
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