I know you can't browser mine BTC, but Unsplash didn't have any XMR pictures
Obviously cryptojacking is a bad practice and should be whole-heartedly frowned upon but what about if you ask permission first?
With the rise of AdBlockers, AdSense and the like are probably falling off as good ways to monetize a website.
I'd love to hear the DEV community's thoughts on the matter. Is this a viable monetization option? Does getting permission first make a difference? Is anybody using in-browser crypto mining and had any success with it? Is it still "malware" if you ask permission first?
Top comments (6)
Part of me wishes that Wikipedia would do this, rather than having to ask for money every year. It's not likely appropriate for mobile devices (eating battery life, limiting performance), but for desktop users, I think this is an interesting option. Having it pop up and ask the user? Not cool. Having users opt-in because they like the site? Definitely more appropriate.
I like the idea of leveraging client computing power with permission. Scientists sometimes distribute work this way in order to conduct compute-intensive experiments.
I'm not sure I like this in the context of cryptocurrency that much. It strikes me as unlikely that this would amount to a net positive for anyone. Computer toil for the sake of toil is an element of cryptocurrency that I just find distasteful.
I don't doubt people will keep trying it, but I don't see it taking off. Absent the innate problems of cryptocurrencies in general, you're still asking people to trust you to run arbitrary code on their computer. Browser sandboxes aren't impregnable, and there's absolutely no reason for a user to put any more faith in a miner than they do in an advertiser.
On the one hand, yes, but on the other – what's stopping you from running that code either way? If you're really malicious, why ask permission? Most people fail to disable JS in their browser anyway.
I've been exploring different monetization strategies for my content site. In-browser mining seems interesting since it doesn't require ads, but I'm concerned about user experience. Has anyone here implemented this successfully? What was the revenue like compared to traditional ads?
I tried in-browser mining on my crypto blog in 2019 and wouldn't recommend it. The revenue was minimal compared to the user experience cost - it slowed down visitors' browsers and drained their batteries quickly. Even with explicit permission, many users complained. I pivoted to content partnerships with a bitcoin mining company which proved much more profitable. Created educational content about mining operations, hardware comparisons, and industry trends. This attracted a targeted audience that equipment manufacturers and mining operations wanted to reach. The affiliate commissions from one mining hardware sale exceeded what I made from thousands of visitors' browser mining. Plus, many antivirus programs now block mining scripts anyway. If you're in the crypto space, there are better monetization methods that don't compromise user experience
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