Support streaming to background tabs

[adrianhopebailie]

From web-monetization created by adrianhopebailie: adrianhopebailie/web-monetization#12

It's not clear right now how a browser would decide if it needs to keep streaming money to a tab that is out of focus.

A possible use case is music playing from a background tab.

[adrianhopebailie]

cc @sharafian @sublimator @justmoon @tobie @marcoscaceres

Any thoughts on this use case?

[sharafian]

The most obvious way to do this would be to ask for permission, but then it's likely every site would ask for it because it would be so lucrative. I'd would say that situation is worse than not supporting this feature, because suddenly having WM gives you a worse experience across the web.

I suppose we could have this as an option that the user can set on a site but the site can't prompt for. Where you can go into the URL bar or the extension menu or the settings or something and allow a site to monetize in the background. The site could prompt the user with instructions if it notices that it's been backgrounded and instruct the user to do this. Not sure if there's any existing features that work that way though. It could be a bit odd.

[tobie]

This seems like a v2 feature to me.

[dellagustin]

Hi All, great that this issue is already documented. I am a developer of a podcast player app on the web, and, naturally, most of the content is consumed from background. I like the idea of asking for permission, but agree with @sharafian comment that it could be abused.

Playing media from a tab is a good sign that there is content there, but again, a website could keep playing some low volume media to pretend it is doing something... it is tricky, but I think it is an important use case for sites providing media (including vídeo, as some times people only listen to them).

[dellagustin]

FYI, at https://github.com/Podcastindex-org/podcast-namespace/issues/132 we are discussing how to support Open Payment monetization for podcasts and how to represent it in the podcast feeds, this will of course have an impact on how podcast player apps use Web Monetization.

[drsm79]

While I think the avenues for abuse are there, the alternatives are worse (either stop the audio stream to regain focus or people don't get paid). Without something to address this, you essentially limit the viability of web monetisation to written or interactive media (games etc), which is still a huge market, but... Maybe something like if there's media playing, the payment stream will go on for a longer time (an hour?) or at a lower payment rate with the tab in the background? Prompting someone on a slower frequency (30-60 mins) is probably sufficiently non-invasive (there's a fair chance they'll skip, change track etc in that time).

[kookster]

Hey @sharafian wanted to bump this up, as I'm also looking into podcasting support for WM like @dellagustin but for PRX and our products/shows.

I can see how enabling across the board could be an issue. Any plans to allow background monetization, with some kind of permission, prompt, or setting?

[justmoon]

cc/ @sabineschaller

[kookster]

Thanks @justmoon for your eyes on this, and @sabineschaller for whatever you might add to how to address this case!

[kookster]

Hey folks, @sabineschaller or @justmoon any update on this? We're close to having our work on this going live, but still limited that the podcast audio player needs to stay in the foreground for payments to work.

[sublimator]

Related: https://github.com/interledger/web-monetization-projects/issues/387#issuecomment-1228026764

[sublimator]

WM as originally intended/envisioned was supposed to be a very simple "ambient" streaming.

I think there's a middle ground that needs to be explored, where the user can override (background streaming/tips/changing payment "rate" etc), but the Agent still does most of the work.