過去十年里，各類廣告屏蔽軟件讓媒體公司少賺了不少錢。為了減少廣告屏蔽軟件給收入造成的損失，媒體公司Salon想到了利用數(shù)字加密貨幣的法子。

從兩周前開始，Salon公司開始要求使用廣告屏蔽軟件的讀者利用富余的計(jì)算力“挖礦”，不過挖的并非比特幣，而是一種叫做門羅幣的數(shù)字加密貨幣。

隨著廣告屏蔽軟件的流行，很多媒體公司都在尋找替代途徑以彌補(bǔ)廣告收入上的損失，利用用戶的富余計(jì)算力“挖礦”也是一種方法。

Salon團(tuán)隊(duì)在宣布啟動(dòng)該計(jì)劃的文章中稱：“像其他大多數(shù)媒體網(wǎng)站一樣，廣告屏蔽軟件也嚴(yán)重影響了我們的收入，并且建立了一種更加單邊化的讀者與出版商的關(guān)系?！?

Salon公司CEO喬丹·霍夫納表示：“我們看到了這個(gè)商業(yè)問題，也看到了潛在的解決問題的方法。”Salon公司此次規(guī)劃了好幾種利用閱讀量生錢的法子，挖礦這種選項(xiàng)目前已經(jīng)擁有了一些用戶。除此之外，該公司還計(jì)劃年內(nèi)推出一款專用平板電腦和付費(fèi)移動(dòng)應(yīng)用。

用戶在訪問Salon公司官網(wǎng)時(shí)，網(wǎng)站會(huì)要求用戶關(guān)掉廣告屏蔽軟件，或者“抑制廣告”。如果選擇了后者，用戶依然可以屏蔽廣告，但Salon會(huì)通過一個(gè)叫做Coinhive的軟件利用用戶的處理器挖門羅幣。用戶在Salon官網(wǎng)上訪問多久，挖礦就會(huì)持續(xù)多久。

Salon公司的目標(biāo)也不僅僅是門羅幣，以后它還會(huì)嘗試更多類型的數(shù)字加密貨幣。

霍夫納表示：“隨著對(duì)各類數(shù)字加密貨幣需求的變化，我們最終會(huì)擁有一系列數(shù)字加密貨幣構(gòu)成的資產(chǎn)組合?！?

不過該計(jì)劃也引起了一些人的質(zhì)疑，因?yàn)殚T羅幣近來被指與某些違法犯罪活動(dòng)有關(guān)。

雖然門羅幣和Coinhive都是出于合法目的建立的，但近幾個(gè)月來，由于“暗網(wǎng)”上有不法分子利用它們進(jìn)行交易，門羅幣和Coinhive軟件也因此遭到了不少抨擊。隨著2017年各類數(shù)字加密貨幣不斷涌現(xiàn)，有些犯罪分子已經(jīng)放棄了知名度最高的比特幣，轉(zhuǎn)戰(zhàn)到門羅幣等其他更加匿名的數(shù)字加密貨幣。Coinhive軟件背后的理念雖然很吸引人——也就是利用用戶訪問量來挖礦，同時(shí)用戶也不必忍受各種惱人的網(wǎng)絡(luò)廣告了。但這款軟件也自帶招黑體質(zhì)，因?yàn)榻?jīng)常會(huì)有黑客為了挖礦而在用戶不知情的情況下劫持他們的電腦。

比如最近，有些國(guó)家的政府網(wǎng)站都成了Coinhive軟件黑客的攻擊目標(biāo)，其中甚至包括美國(guó)和英國(guó)的政府網(wǎng)站。另外，有一個(gè)版本的Google Chrome瀏覽器也被發(fā)現(xiàn)在未經(jīng)用戶同意的情況下安裝了Coinhive軟件。

不過霍夫納表示，他對(duì)門羅幣和Coinhive與黑客活動(dòng)的關(guān)聯(lián)并不擔(dān)心，因?yàn)檫@些都是新技術(shù)剛出現(xiàn)時(shí)必經(jīng)的陣痛。

“隨著時(shí)間的推移，這些問題會(huì)自我修正的。在線視頻和網(wǎng)絡(luò)隱私問題剛出現(xiàn)時(shí)，我已經(jīng)在這個(gè)行業(yè)里了。隨著時(shí)間的推移，它們都得到了修正。這是歷史給我們的經(jīng)驗(yàn)?！彼€表示，新技術(shù)變得越流行，他們被犯罪分子利用的程度就會(huì)越低。

比如據(jù)Chainalysis公司分析，2017年，用于“暗網(wǎng)”非法活動(dòng)的比特幣交易的比例已經(jīng)從30%下降到了1%。

Salon公司具體能通過挖礦賺到多少錢，目前仍然是個(gè)未知數(shù)，不過八成是賺不了太多的。根據(jù)Coinhive公司的估算，一個(gè)網(wǎng)站如果每個(gè)月有100萬個(gè)訪問量，每人每次訪問五分鐘，憑這些計(jì)算量，每月也只能挖到0.27個(gè)門羅幣，以門羅幣當(dāng)前238美元的幣值計(jì)算，大概一個(gè)月只能賺到64美元。

據(jù)Salon公司公布，該公司2017財(cái)年第四季度有1310名有效用戶訪問了它的網(wǎng)站，如果算瀏覽次數(shù)的話則可能更高。不過也并非每名用戶都會(huì)成為Salon的“礦工”，畢竟很多用戶可能都會(huì)選擇不參與這個(gè)計(jì)劃。

不過在霍夫納等相信數(shù)字加密貨幣發(fā)展前景的人看來，風(fēng)物長(zhǎng)宜放眼量，長(zhǎng)期的回報(bào)才是最重要的。

他在談及該網(wǎng)站的廣告屏蔽計(jì)劃時(shí)表示：“我們是在原來沒法賺錢的地方開始賺錢?，F(xiàn)在我們只想挖礦，看看下一步會(huì)發(fā)生什么。”

如果霍夫納這一注賭對(duì)了，那么他肯定會(huì)在競(jìng)爭(zhēng)中走在前列。

“目前，很多沒法靠廣告賺錢的網(wǎng)站都開始使用Coinhive軟件了。比如一些論壇或小的社區(qū)網(wǎng)站，用戶是愿意給予網(wǎng)站一些回饋的，當(dāng)然黃色網(wǎng)站也在其列?！盋oinhive公司的一名代表在電子郵件中表示：“據(jù)我們所知，Salon公司是使用我們的服務(wù)的第一家主流媒體公司?！保ㄘ?cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：Min?

Ad-blocking software has cut a hole in the purses of media companies over the past decade. As part of its plan to combat that trend, media company Salon is jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.

Starting Sunday, Salon began asking its readers that use ad-blockers to turn over spare computing power in a bid to mine a cryptocurrency known as Monero.

That comes as media companies seek alternatives to ad revenue, which have taken a hit thanks to the popularity of ad-blocking software.

“Like most media sites, ad-blockers cut deeply into our revenue and create a more one-sided relationship between reader and publisher,” Salon’s team wrote in a note addressing the new program.

“We saw a business problem, we saw a potential way out—potential being the key word—and we took it,” said Salon CEO Jordan Hoffner of the new revenue-generating plan. The mining option, which Hoffner says already has some users, is one of several ways Salon says it plans to monetize views. Another part of that plan is a paid tablet and mobile app expected to debut later this year.

Ad-blocking users who visit Salon’s site will be asked to either turn off their ad-blocker, or “suppress ads.” By choosing the latter option, users can block the ads—but in return, Salon uses their processors to mine Monero with a software known as Coinhive. The mining will take place for as long as the user remains on the site.

And it’s not just Monero—eventually, the company may also try to mine more kinds of cryptocurrencies.

“The coins will change over time as the demand for whatever currency changes,” Hoffner said. “We’ll end up building a portfolio of [cryptocurrencies].”

Still, the program did illicit some raised eyebrows, as Monero has recently been associated with criminal activities.

While Monero and Coinhive may have been created for legitimate purposes, both of their reputations have taken quite the beating in recent months as hackers on the dark web make use of their respective advantages. With the rise of cryptocurrency in 2017, some criminals appeared to ditch the pseudonymous Bitcoin in favor of its more anonymous brethren like Monero. And while the idea behind Coinhive is compelling—monetizing based on visits rather than ad views—the software often makes headlines thanks to the hackers who have used it to hijack the computers of unsuspecting users in order to mine cryptocurrency.

Recently, visitors to some government websites in countries including the U.S. and U.K. fell victim to a Coinhive scheme. Similarly, a Google Chrome extension with over 100,000 users was also caught using Coinhive without consumer permission.

Hoffner, though, said he isn’t too worried about the association and thinks it’s part of the growing pains that come with new technologies.

“These things will straighten themselves out over time. I was there at the time of online video and online piracy. They straightened themselves out over time. That’s what history has suggested,” Hoffner said, noting that as these technologies have grown more popular, their uses by the criminal underworld have generally abated to some extent.

The proportion of Bitcoin transactions used for dark web activities, for example, fell from 30% to under 1% in 2017, according to Chainalysis.

Still, it’s unclear exactly how much Salon will make revenue-wise from its cryptocurrency activities. As it stands, it’s unlikely to be a significant figure. Based on Coinhive estimates, a site with one million visits of five minutes each would earn about 0.27 of the cryptocurrency a month. That’s about $64 a month at Monero’s current value of $238.

Salon posted an average of 13.1 million unique visitors a month in the final quarter of 2017—though its view figures are likely higher. Not all of those views, though, will result in Monero mining, as viewers may choose to avoid the program.

But for Hoffner, as it often is for cryptocurrency’s believers, it’s about looking into the long term.

“We are earning something when we were earning nothing,” he said of ad-blocking on the website. “We just want to right now collect coins and see what happens.”

And if Hoffner makes the right bet with Coinhive, he will certainly be ahead of the curve.

“Currently a lot of sites that have trouble monetizing with ads use Coinhive. This includes forums, small community sites where users happily give something back and, of course, porn sites,” a Coinhive representative said in an email. “As far as we know, Salon is the first major media firm to use our service.”