Salon Becomes First News Site to Monetize Through Cryptocurrency Mining

I pretty much started my career writing about virtual worlds and related topics for Salon, so it's a uniquely personal irony that the pioneering news and opinion site is now giving readers the option to block ads in exchange for letting Salon leverage the reader's computer to mine virtual currency:

How does Salon make money by using my processing power?

The demand for computing power across many different industries and applications is potentially very high. We intend to use a small percentage of your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation. For our beta program, we’ll start by applying your processing power to help support the evolution and growth of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

The specific cryptocurrency being mined isn't mentioned, possibly because more than one are involved, or perhaps, that Salon as a left-leaning outlet has been highly critical of Bitcoin -- asking just a couple months ago if Bitcoin is enabling right wing extremists, or pointing out that it's a threat to the environment. Which, you know, puts Salon in a somewhat awkward place.

In any case, while other media sites (such as Showtime) have got into the business of leveraging users' computing power for cryptocurrency, this is the first general news site I'm aware of to do this, and as an alternative for monetizing through ads. Which is noteworthy, though I can't possibly be more ambivalent:

I'm on record constantly arguing that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are unlikely to ever work as money, and as such, are an incredibly risky revenue source. On the other hand, unless you're the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or the Washington Post, it's a desperate time for news publications. (And desperate times, etc.)

Hat tip: James Hitchcock.

Comments

[Sadie Winchester]

...opening themselves up for the coming class action lawsuits on other sites who do this and I welcome it. You can block your browser from being used for this purpose by using ublock origin. Make sure its the origin version of ublock , it has support for stopping this kind of b.s.

You may block me from viewing your content if I do not disable my blocker but you have ZERO RIGHT to harness my hardware and electricity for mining. Absolutely zero.

[Patchouli Woollahra]

Sadie:

Calm down a little. in this case Salon has openly asked you to drop the blocker, stop reading the site, or openly volunteer spare CPU power to help fund it. This is a relatively decent ask. if you really don't want to mine even on a voluntary basis, then either whitelist the domain and allow ads for it, or don't read it at all, or support their ad-free paid subscription when it goes live.

The era of 'free-for-all' is almost over. consider that more and more content will be provided in this manner going forward. Your hyperbole is as effective as trying to dry the Atlantic Ocean with a hair-dryer.

[sirhc desantis]

Switched off the ublock to check and baffled how the two minutes I might spend once a week flicking through could be any help in mining on my old box (because even I know how to kill it when not reading) but hey - interesting.
However, it was a blast reading some of your old 'embedded' stuff so that was worth it.

[Tizzy Canucci]

What happens by the time you get to the 20th or 30th website wanting to use your 'unused computing power'? It's as much a dream of perpetual motion and unending rewards as crypto-currencies themselves. But first-in always do well, even if others carry the losses.

[Ciaran Laval]

This is a terrible development in terms of cyber security, we really don't want or need people thinking it's ok to let sites install apps on your computer in this manner.

Yes the news industry is in a very sorry state, local news is struggling badly in the online age and the ad based revenue market led to far too many click-baity articles to get the eyes on the prize, Salon's move is not a good one.

Crypto-currencies are arguably the way forward because one of the huge challenges for online publications is in getting people to part with their cash as easily as they can at a physical newsstand, subscriptions are clunky and awkward. They media might want to pay attention to the way virtual worlds encourage ease of spending on a whim.

The Guardian have gone in a different direction, they encourage people to contribute and apparently they now get more revenue that way than they do via advertising.

There are many challenges for the news media but really, they should be working with Silicon Valley on payment systems.

[Zafar Yaqoob]

Cryptocurrency being mined isn't mentioned, possibly because more than one are involved, or perhaps, that Salon as a left-leaning outlet has been highly critical of Bitcoin Yes It's true.