Original Title: x402 solves the original sin of the internet: ads
Original Author: @_0xaryan
Translated by: Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: In the era of the internet, content can only be sustained by the attention economy. However, as AI agents become the primary consumers of information, the advertising model will collapse, and blockchain makes "pay-per-use" micropayments possible.

x402 is thus seen as a new paradigm: providing a unified on-chain payment interface for agents and content providers, allowing data exchange to return to a transactional logic rather than attention capture.

The following is the original content:

The "Original Sin" of the Internet

For decades, online advertising has been the only way for the internet to survive.

Everyone is competing for attention. To achieve this, companies collect all possible data about you, build user profiles, and then show you ads.

In the world of the internet, this single business model has supported a market that now scales to trillions of dollars.

In fact, financial mechanisms have existed since the dawn of the internet: collaborating with payment providers; setting up paywalls on websites; or displaying ads.

But micropayments (less than $1) have always been economically unfeasible—because Visa/Mastercard charge about 2% + $0.10 per transaction.

Thus, advertising became the only viable model: users can access a wealth of content for free; advertisers can precisely reach potential customers; content publishers can earn revenue. This is a balance that benefits all parties.

The Era of Intelligent Agents

Agents are gradually becoming the primary consumers of content, rather than humans themselves. They act as "middleware," replacing humans in reading and interacting with information.

The result is that advertisers can no longer directly target "humans"; the advertising economic system will collapse as a result.

In the future, agents will either "scrape" content or "purchase" content. APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) will replace traditional browsers, becoming the default communication method on the internet.

User Path

However, scraping content is economically unsustainable, so content publishers will turn to charging micropayment fees for access to content, while agents will need a viable payment method.

For decades, micropayments have been unachievable—until the advent of blockchain.

Blockchains like @solana make large-scale low-cost micropayments possible without "exploiting users."

The Emergence of x402

x402 is a standard built on the concept of the HTTP 402 status code ("Payment Required"), providing a unified interface for consumers to pay for content and publishers to collect fees, without intermediaries (like Visa/Mastercard).

This makes "agent-based micropayments" a reality.

Source: payai.network

Any client (whether an agent or a browser) sends a content access request, and the content host returns a "payment request." After the client completes the payment, the content is unlocked.

This opens up a new economic model for the "agent internet."

Potential Application Scenarios

1. Gasless User Experience

x402 allows users to conduct gasless transactions on any network, as long as they hold assets in their wallets.

2. x402 Browser

Someone should develop a native x402 browser based on the Chromium branch.

@brave is best suited for this: it has a good reputation in the crypto community, comes with a built-in wallet, and supports IPFS by default.

3. Onchain Bazaars

Traditional market discovery mechanisms have barriers.

@CoinbaseDev has addressed this issue through the "Bazaar" section, but these marketplaces are still maintained off-chain.

An on-chain directory can be built, allowing anyone to list the content they sell (APIs, newsletters, e-books, etc.),

and embed a rating system in the directory, similar to how OpenRouter ranks models.

4. Skip Ads Payment

Before x402 becomes widespread, a "pay to skip ads" feature can be introduced as a transition.

Users set a daily spending limit, and when entering YouTube, the x402 browser automatically skips ads for you, paying the costs to the advertisers.

Every time I see a simple technology that can spawn a new economic system, I am amazed.

x402 is one such technology.

If you are building products in this field, whether as a seller or a buyer, contact me— we are creating something new for you.

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