# Why Micropayments? The Internet Was Meant To Provide Value To Users, Not Spy …

Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/why-micropayments-the-internet-was-meant-to-provide-value-to-users-not-spy-on-them
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Why-Micropayments-The-Internet-Was-Meant-To-Provide-Value-To-Users-Not-Spy?index=0x68ca5269dfbbf9792d5fdccde16a3a876d121ff575c41d982d075aaf9da0daba5c8378a8
Submitted by rvolz.eth on 2025-09-17 UTC, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

## Summary

Shinobi's second episode in a 10-part Bitcoin privacy video series argues that privacy and censorship resistance are inseparable, and that Bitcoin micropayments can help restore a privacy-respecting internet. The article states that without privacy, interactions can be exposed to external pressure such as shunning, shamming, jailing or penalties, and that most people will then censor themselves. In the episode, Shinobi speaks with Calle, creator of the Cashu ecash protocol, about how free internet platforms pay for their cost by sacrificing user privacy for advertising revenue. They also discuss how Cashu could enable bitcoin micropayments as an alternative, in line with the original HTTP "402 Payment Required" design.

## Article

This is the second in a 10-episode video series focusing on Bitcoin privacy, filmed at bitcoin++ Privacy Edition in Riga and elsewhere. Each episode will touch on some aspect of Bitcoin privacy, tools to use Bitcoin privately or surveillance techniques.

Privacy is heads, censorship resistance is tails. They’re two sides of the same coin.

Everything people do together is inherently interactive. When those interactions cannot be conducted privately, when they become common public knowledge, the participants can be subjected to external pressure. They can be shunned, shamed, jailed or penalized in many other ways.

Without privacy, you have no censorship resistance. Without privacy, most people will censor themselves.

In this second episode, I sit down with Calle, the creator the Cashu ecash protocol, to discuss the loss of privacy on the modern internet. In an era where large internet platforms are accessible for free, the real cost of these platform is paid for by sacrificing your privacy in the name of advertising revenue.

This economic model of the internet is a wild departure from the original vision of users paying for accessing to resources. The “402 Payment Required” error message was a part of the HTTP protocol from the very start.

We discuss how Cashu as a vehicle for bitcoin micropayments offers a chance to turn things around, and build the privacy respecting internet the early designs of the world wide web envisioned to begin with.

Watch the talk below:

Here is the second video in the Privacy Series. In this episode I sat down with @callebtc to discuss his work on Cashu, and how Bitcoin can be used as a tool to claw back privacy on the modern internet. pic.twitter.com/iXX08rtjse

— Shinobi (@brian_trollz) September 12, 2025

Shinobi

Shinobi is an pseudonymous self taught educator in the Bitcoin space. He was the co-host of Block Digest, a news/tech oriented Bitcoin podcast, as well as What Bitcoin Did Tech Show with Peter McCormack which centered around explaining technical concepts to non-technical users. That is all he will tell us about himself.