Creators and model developers have faced an awkward situation in the past two years: their works are constantly called upon and used, yet they struggle to receive fair compensation for each interaction. Existing approaches all come with costs—placing content behind paywalls sacrifices reach, offering free access sacrifices revenue, and relying on platform revenue sharing and advertising means giving up pricing control.

The arrival of the AI agent era will push this contradiction to new heights. Your users may not even be human but intelligent agents executing tasks in the background. These agents won't register accounts, link bank cards, or renew monthly plans like real users, nor will they understand why calling an API requires pre-purchasing a full month’s service package.

A natural solution emerges: a pay-per-use revenue model for creative content. This shifts the positioning of works—they are no longer just content but service interfaces that can be called directly by programs and settled in real-time. The key is not just "bringing content onto the blockchain," but transforming the transaction language into machine language that agents can understand.

This is precisely the value of native internet payment protocols like HTTP 402. They embed the "Payment Required (402) → Payment → Authorization" process directly into the standard HTTP request-response framework, enabling API calls, model inferences, and data access to automatically settle value with each request. This breaks free from the old systems of subscriptions, invoicing, and API keys, which are inefficient for machines.

When content is wrapped as an interface, receiving a 402 response code won't be seen as a blockage by the agent but as part of the normal operation—pay when needed, get instant authorization after payment, and have a naturally traceable settlement proof. This is a more machine-friendly economic model.