Enhancing the Awareness, Utility, and Anonymity Set of Oxen - Part 11 - Promoting Lokinet Exit Marketplace through Preview Generation and In-app Navigation of Clearnet URLs

The ORC-8 discussion outlines a key issue in the Oxen ecosystem: the coin's underuse due to limited daily transfers, leading to a decrease in Oxen's practical anonymity set.

Previous proposals have leveraged the invisible social graph of Session users and interactive in-app prompts to remind users to purchase specific advanced features, thereby increasing Oxen usage.

This proposal aims to promote the Lokinet Exit Marketplace (potentially rebranding as SessionTunnel Marketplace) using the same strategy, while creating a seamless integrated experience for users when using Session to share and navigate clearnet URLs.

Motivation

Session users, like users of other messenger apps, frequently send and receive URLs. Opening a URL in a system browser without VPN exposes metadata, especially the IP address, posing a threat to privacy. To mitigate this risk, users may purchase a separate VPN or proxy for their default browser. However, this approach leads to a loss of potential Lokinet Exit users, increasing the 'bounce rate' of Session in terms of web traffic analysis. This is referred to as Marketplace Leakage, a challenging issue in the marketplace business model.

Integrating a browser into the Session messenger app and guiding users to purchase and enable Lokinet Exit creates a win-win scenario by saving time for users, providing a seamless experience, enhancing privacy protection, increasing revenue for Lokinet Exit business partners, and increasing Oxen usage.

Prerequisites: Lokinet Integration and In-app browser

The proposal assumes the integration of libLokinet into Session and proposes supporting URL rendering by calling WebView on various Session platforms.

Preview Generation of Clearnet URL

When a user inserts a URL into a conversation, instead of warning about metadata protection, we could promote Lokinet Marketplace by asking:

Do you want to subscribe to ‘SessionTunnel’ to enable privacy-preserved link preview generation?

A positive response would redirect them to the Lokinet Exit Marketplace, or rebranded as ‘SessionTunnel Marketplace’.

In-app Navigation of Clearnet URL

When receiving a clearnet URL, we could promote Lokinet Marketplace by asking users if they wish to open the URL using ‘SessionTunnel’ to protect their privacy. If the user agrees, we redirect them to purchase a Lokinet Exit for future in-app navigation. If they already have Lokinet Exit subscription, we open the URL using the in-app browser with the Lokinet Exit tunnel purchased by the user.

Lean Startup Style Business Experiment

A beta version could begin with the OPTF hosting their own Lokinet Exit, charging users for a limited of time, with potential discounts to attract beta testers. After several months, the experience gained and the metrics collected could be used to refine the product and attract business partners.

Relation with Other Official Session Payment Services

Further research is needed to determine whether Session Pro should include limited in-app SessionTunnel services or if they should be separate services and payment options.

Payment Channel

Several payment channels are suggested:

OPTF processes in-app fiat payment on behalf of the third-party VPN provider, charges for a commission. OPTF then converts the fiat currency to Oxen and pays the vendor, at the same time collects the user's Session blinded ID, the product's SKU ID, and the Oxen payment address, submits together to the VPN provider. Subsequently, OPTF returns the Oxen transaction ID to the user. In the future, the user can contact the VPN vendor through the original Session blinded ID and provide this Oxen transaction ID to authorize access. The VPN vendor's order history database should record the original Session blinded ID so that the vendor can authorize the user in the future, without needing any sensitive user information.
The user pays the third-party VPN provider with Oxen directly, following a similar registration process as described in option 1.

Further implementation details align with Enhancing the Awareness, Utility, and Anonymity Set of Oxen - Part 8 - Lokinet Monetization.

A discount should be offered to users who pay directly in Oxen for the following reasons:

By choosing to purchase with Oxen instead of in-app payment, fees paid to Apple and Google can be reduced without affecting the third-party VPN vendor's revenue, resulting in mutual benefit.
Users contributing to Oxen's anonymity set by using the currency should be rewarded for their participation.

Ideally, when paying for the VPN vendor on behalf of users, OPTF should create a temporary wallet for each order and discard that wallet within 48 hours.

Darknet URL (.loki)

The in-app browser should handle darknet URL previews and navigation with privacy protection without extra setup or purchasing, potentially branding as ‘SessionDive’.

Cross-Platform Promotion of Lokinet Exit VPN Service

Users who purchase a Lokinet Exit VPN service should be reminded that the same service can be used on Desktop by downloading Lokinet Desktop (potentially rebranded as SessionTunnel Desktop).

Anticipated Impact

According to storage server statistics, approximately 250k messages are stored per swarm every 14 days, resulting in 250k * 256 = 64 million messages across the entire network stored in the same period. This translates to 64 million / 14 = 4.6 million messages across the entire network stored daily. By deduplicating message backups on users' own swarms, there are about 2.3 million messages sent and an equal number received by users each day (2 stores = 1 sent + 1 received).

A brief sampling of public data in the Session Community shows that, on average, 5 to 10 HTTP(s) links are found in every 100 messages. Almost all of these are clear net URLs at present.

Assuming the same URL ratio applies to one-on-one messages and close group messages, and taking the lower estimation of a 5% URL rate, our users send 115k URLs per day (2.3 million * 5%).

This results in a maximum of 115k opportunities per day to remind our users to purchase SessionTunnel (Lokinet Exit) when inserting a link, and another maximum of 115k opportunities to remind them about SessionTunnel when the recipient clicks the same link. Considering that close group implementation might be refined and promoted in the future, a single link could have multiple readers, amplifying the chances of convincing recipients to purchase SessionTunnel.

In digital marketing, repetitive strategies are effective. By diligently reminding users to protect their privacy with SessionTunnel, we enhance the exposure of the technology, potentially converting a significant proportion of users. The overall conversion rate is expected to be high, though exact numbers will require experimentation.

Since VPN subscription is a proven business model, and users are accustomed to paying for it, promoting SessionTunnel in-app will allow us to retain those who might otherwise purchase VPN elsewhere. This creates a unique advantage in our ecosystem, positioning us strongly in a space where few other players exist.

With a market value of 50 billion, implementing this strategy could make SessionTunnel (Lokinet Exit VPN) the largest revenue source for Session, potentially outperforming Session Pro income. This could become a standout feature, surpassing any other proposals from Part 1 to Part 10. Additionally, it would make an easily understandable and compelling story to potential investors.

Assuming a 5% conversion rate from 1 million monthly active users with a $6 monthly VPN subscription, the total transaction volume per year would amount to $3.6 million. If OPTF charges an 8% commission on VPN service providers, this would result in an income of $288,000 just 12 months after monetization. This revenue would be sufficient to cover the Oxen service network infrastructure fees and provide significant price support. If the Session user base doubles every year, by the end of the 3rd year there would be an 8x increase in users, resulting in $2.3 million in annual income from VPN commissions, exactly offsetting the current annual spending of OPTF.

From the anonymity set point of view, a 5% conversion rate of 1 million MAU equals 50k transactions per month, or 1.6k transactions per day. By the end of the 3rd year, with an 8x increase in users and assuming the same level of conversion rate, we will have 13k transactions per day. This is comparable to Monero's current 20k transactions per day.

If successfully built, this closed-loop ecosystem will position Session as the killer app in the cryptocurrency world.

oxen-io / oxen-improvement-proposals