What real world problem is ILP solving?

General Questions
1

I see there are some applications listed in the Use Cases category but I still don’t understand what ILP solves.

  • For POS everybody and their mom already has a CC.
  • For web monetization we have a large and thriving advertising ecosystem that took a long time to build
  • For micropayments these services are typically centered around content aggregators anyways, so they can net out the micropayments (e.g. iTunes).
  • For crypto the underlying economic activity is a rounding error.

What is ILP doing for the world now?

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2

For POS everybody and their mom already has a CC

Not the case in developing countries

For web monetization we have a large and thriving advertising ecosystem that took a long time to build

Advertising is easy to block, and ad-blockers are becoming more and more prevalent with privacy concerns.

That’s true of today, but before the internet you’d also say that journalism is centered around newspaper networks, because they have the distribution networks. The barriers to distributing information were high enough that not just anyone could do it. With the internet the barriers have been lowered, and anyone can make a blog read by millions.

Similarly, the barriers to entry for making paid content are high enough that only very large aggregators can sell content for micropayments (and even they can only pay out in micropayments. They still collect subscriptions from users). With Interledger, anyone will be able to receive and send out payments, meaning that if you want to sell your music on your personal website, you can do so without relying on a big aggregator.

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3

Credit cards are an extremely flawed model to go by. POS in the developed world have CC support. Where I originally come from, no one has a credit card (Lebanon, a relatively advanced country in the Middle East). A money protocol with alternative payment systems would be great. CC will never make it to some countries.

The example around iTunes does not really support an argument against the need for micropayments. You shouldn’t need Apple or whoever to accept micropayments. It’s been like this for too long anyway.

The ads ecosystem is hated by everyone. I’ve advertised on fb and I have no clue what happens there. You kinda have to trust fb on whatever they tell you. To be fair, I don’t see Coil as the solution simply because it “donates” not “pays”. What if Coil stops donating…

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4

For POS everybody and their mom already has a CC

Not the case in developing countries

Sure, but I’d counter that with the popularity of other mobile payment solutions (in China, WeChat and AliPay; in Kenya, M-Pesa; in India, PayTM, WhatsApp, Google Tez) that are taking over POS. But yeah, too many people still don’t have access to banking infrastructure or digital money.

That said – does a mechanism to seamlessly move value between all of those networks really matter?

For web monetization we have a large and thriving advertising ecosystem that took a long time to build

Thriving? > 90% of the revenue goes through one of two gatekeepers (which is only becoming more centralized as Google leverages Chrome & Android to block ads that aren’t approved by their cartel). And it’s increasingly hard to make it as an independent creator without negotiating external sponsorships.