Future of paywithz.cash

Paywithz.cash is now in the good hands of ZecHub, an independent Zcash organization. Yesterday, February 3, 2025, I freely gave the website to ZecHub.

Wait, what?

So, having an accurate merchant directory is really hard. I’ve followed the trajectory of nearly all the different directories, and most have eventually gone gentle into that good night. Why?

A merchant directory is generally a public good. It’s like an individual owning a public park. Paywithz.cash generates no revenue on its own to pay for associated costs like a server, domain, or paid plugins. Sure, the site owner can run ads, allow paid accounts, firewalls, or affiliate links. Or sell user data. Yikes. Even if those strategies are successful, is that the best way to do things? Thankfully, paywithz.cash has historically been funded by the Zcash community — credit to the Zcash Foundation for initially funding creation of the site in 2018, and the Zcash Community Grants organization for funding improvements and updating from 2022–23.

Also, listings go stale and/or inaccurate really quickly. Merchants are fickle and drop support easily. It takes a lot of time and effort to continually check hundreds of merchants for their payment options. Sometimes checking is as simple as a click, but it often involves paying for items with Zcash or at the least going through the checkout process, creating an account with contact info, and stopping just short of paying.

And finally, there are liability risks. Ross Ulbricht is a free man now, but he spent 10 years locked up in jail for a crypto website. What if a clothing merchant starts selling illegal drugs, and paywithz.cash has a link to it? What if a nonprofit listed on the site supports the wrong political side? We say the listings aren’t endorsements, but is that a bulletproof defense when accused of something fairly or unfairly?

Going forward, I think ZecHub is best positioned to answer the 3 challenges I ran into. ZecHub is set up for the long term and funded by members and the community. They are active Zcashers who can manage and update listings. Structurally, ZecHub is a DAO which may have more protection than one individual.

I wish ZecHub well in their future management of the directory! Thank you especially to Dismad and Squirrel for their efforts to transition site control to ZecHub.