The payoff isn't good enough for this to support add-free services, and the payoff gets worse as crypto becomes more popular. Then there's the fact that you might be browsing from a battery-powered device.

>The payoff isn't good enough for this to support add-free services

Hmm, wait. How it works, then?

Let's say I'm paying 1$ to display malicious ad which mines something. BTC.

If amount of mined BTC is lower than 1$, the whole operations becomes unprofitable. Why should I pay 1$ to mine 90 cents via ad?

If people are running this operation on scale, it should be profitable. But then payoff is by definition good enough to support ad-free service. Instead of taking 1$ from advertiser, google can theoretically mine 1$ on my PC and let me watch video without ads.

What do I miss?

you still get to display an advertisement. so it isn't "mined BTC > $1 --> success"; it is "mined BTC + expected value of running scam ad > $1 --> success"

I think his point was a hypothetical without the advertising component. Like if they just embedded bitcoin miners in every page that displayed a youtube video.

Good point! Thank you.

PS: Also, I wonder what other sites could be affected. Requirement is "user spending a lot of time on a page", so maybe blogging services with long posts, or shady sites with online sports broadcasts. Ugh, adblocker slowly becomes a requirement for modern web.

Cut out the middle man. YouTube itself can mine cryptos while videos are playing instead of displaying ads. At least then you know the trade off and have a single company to complain to when they are draining your CPU too much.

You're still better off selling shovels in a gold rush.

Do we trust the competency of ad providers to normalize for low powered devices? If I read an article on some small news outlet or indie blog using my phone, will my hand get burned off?

I trust their financial interest. A cellphone will not mine enough to be profitable, so they will serve a regular ad instead.

A normal CPU probably won't mine enough to be profitable either, but since the users pays for electricity, not the advertiser, I don't see the incentive.

Dust (UXTO with small amounts) would make them incur greater transaction fees when trying to access their account.

BTW, it is interesting my comments offering an explanation are being downvoted.

I guess cryptocurrency discussions are driven by passion, not by logic.

Wouldn't they just mine to a pool (private pool if enough clients)? I'm not sure why an inefficient client would lead to additional fees.

This! So much!

Many people just can't see the progress and the new possibilities offered.

Like you, I don't like ads because it distracts me. Mining on my CPU? I do not care. If it pays for bandwidth and allows me to get a ad-free experience, sign-me up!

that's so incredibly naive, you're going to get ads on top of a cryptominer