Concerns around Web Payments HTTP API de-prioritization

During the last Web Payments WG call, the group decided to push the
delivery of the First Public Working Draft of the HTTP API back to June
2016 (it had been scheduled for March 2016). The reasoning was that we
don't have the bandwidth to do a thorough review of both by the March
2016 deadline.

I +1'ed this proposal because I agreed with the notion that we don't
have enough people capable of doing a thorough spec review of the Web
Payments HTTP API by March 2016. The votes seemed to be indifferent to
the fact that we were de-prioritizing the HTTP API. That's deeply
concerning to me.

To be clear, I view the HTTP API as equally important as the Browser
API. It has been noted that this view may not be shared by the rest of
the group. I'd like to understand where the group stands on the
importance of the Web Payments HTTP API.

In an attempt to be abundantly clear:

Without the Web Payments HTTP API, we have no solution for
non-interactive payments via the Web. Non-interactive (aka automated)
payments constitute roughly 91% of the total value of payments in the
UK[1] and almost 50% of US ACH network transaction volume[2].

The Browser API is for interactive payments and is designed around the
notion that there will be someone there to click a button to initiate
the payment.

What was surprising to me during the poll two days ago was not that we
were deprioritizing the HTTP API to focus on the Browser API, but that a
number of WPWG members said that they were either 1) indifferent about
the HTTP API, or 2) didn't understand why the HTTP API was important.

The Web Payments HTTP API is the thing that gives us non-interactive
payments over the Internet and the Web. We have de-prioritized it. Do
you, as a group member, feel indifferent about that decision? Or does
this concern you as well?

-- manu

[1]http://www.paymentsuk.org.uk/news-events/news/new-report-reveals-record-73-billion-automated-payments-made-2014
[2]https://www.nacha.org/news/ach-volume-increases-23-billion-payments-2014

-- 
Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
blog: Web Payments: The Architect, the Sage, and the Moral Voice
https://manu.sporny.org/2015/payments-collaboration/

Received on Saturday, 30 January 2016 16:48:42 UTC