https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/3/18246851/expensive-chat-room-marc-kohlbrugge-charge-penny-per-characte

Entrepreneur Marc Köhlbrugge has launched Expensive Chat, a web-based chat service where every character typed costs a penny. As spotted by Motherboard, Köhlbrugge announced the site in a tweet, calling it “a social experiment to see what happens to a chatroom when it’s not a free-for-all, but every message cost you cold, hard cash.” And where does all that cash go? Directly to Köhlbrugge.

The site shows a leaderboard, with those who have spent the most at the top, and then the chat room itself. There are a few friendly messages, but in the short time Expensive Chat has been operational, it’s become mostly littered with ads for companies and services. There’s a box at the bottom of the page if you want to compose your own message to post, and Expensive Chat takes Stripe, debit, and credit cards as payment.