At its core, there are few paths to on-demand video monetization. Ads, subscriptions (SVoD), on-demand purchases and rentals (TVoD), or some combination of the above. There are leftfield options like e-commerce and sponsorships, or tokenization and micro-payments, not to mention third-party licensing and feature upgrades, but what if we told you there was another way? This is the eyebrow-raising pitch of newly rebranded web3 monetization platform Hydro Online (née Gather Network circa 2018). Hydro promises viewership-based monetization on websites, without the need for ads or subscriptions, or any kind of user purchases. Everyone knows there is no such thing as a free lunch. We assure our dubious readers that we were just as skeptical about the whole thing as CEO…