Explained: Machine Payments Protocol

You find an API that does exactly what you need. You only want to make a handful of calls to see if it works. Before the first request goes out, you are creating an account, confirming your email, entering a credit card, choosing a pricing tier and copying an API key into an environment variable. Ten minutes of paperwork for a few cents of usage. Now picture an AI agent in the same position. It is halfway through a research task and hits a paid d… Read More