
Micropayment Barriers (1998) - henning
https://nothings.org/writing/upay.html
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emrehan
The footer reads "written 2001-06-30" and The Wayback Machine confirms that
the page has not been updated since 2002:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20020122135113/https://nothings....](https://web.archive.org/web/20020122135113/https://nothings.org/writing/upay.html)

I find the design of the page quite beautiful.

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panic
Here are fixed links for the comics "(1 and 2)" in the first panel:

[http://www.scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/icst/icst-5/icst-5.h...](http://www.scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/icst/icst-5/icst-5.html)

[http://www.scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/icst/icst-6/icst-6.h...](http://www.scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/icst/icst-6/icst-6.html)

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tom_mellior
At some point cryptocurrencies felt like they could get us most of the way to
working micropayments. Unfortunately Bitcoin's huge transaction fees and still
unreliable service made that impossible. I still hope this will change at some
point, but I can't imagine how a sufficiently dominant cryptocurrency could
ever emerge again.

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buboard
Bitcoin is your cash reserve, its like tour bank account and you dont go to
the bank every day. There are multiple solutions to the speed issues. The real
issue is that crypto is incompatible with any taxation system everywhere

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tom_mellior
I don't know what you mean by the bank account analogy. I don't _go_ to the
bank everyday, but I can interact with my bank account several times per day.
I can make free money transfers to any SEPA account, so this is also part of
what micropayments should be. It's just tedious, and the money takes two to
three days to arrive.

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buboard
i mean that bitcoin has de facto become a store of cash rather than cash at
hand. It's indeed not like a bank since there are no chargebacks, no insurance
nothing. It's different. But there are also multiple solutions to the speed
issue, so speed is not really what s holding back widespread adoption.

SEPA is bank transfers with delays of entire days - that makes them completely
unfit for micropayments.

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Scarblac
For much of Europe, SEPA transfers are already as good as instantaneous and I
think the other countries will follow.

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big_chungus
Can someone explain why micro-payments are good? I get a potential benefit to
companies (it typically also means easier payments), but I don't see the
benefit to consumers. My perception has been that there is a push towards
smaller payments at a higher frequency, such that consumers pay more over all
but don't notice it; a sort of financial "death by a thousand cuts". Is there
any actual consumer benefit to these? I can think of no personal case where I
even _want_ to make small payments.

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TACIXAT
They could replace ads. I would personal prefer to pay the tenth of a cent my
ad view generated than have to see an ad.

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slowenough
What's the barrier to using Stripe to top-up credit (say USD 20 buys 1 million
virtual credits) then spending those on the web buying tiny things for tiny
amounts?

In a sense, WeChat Pay etc in China have already "overcome barriers" to
micropayments, even tho the amounts do not need to be micro.

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jiofih
That means the company holding that credit becomes subject to financial
regulation, which is complex and expensive. Plus merchants now have to
integrate with yet another middleman.

The simpler solution is: no fees for small debit transactions, once the baking
system is modernized the cost of a transaction is in fact close to zero. This
is already the case in Western Europe.

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buboard
No fees doesn’t solve the onerous accounting issues. This needs some kind of
mechanism and legislation that allows accounting of a small amount of money
without disclosing the transacted parties

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petjuh
Seems like most of the internet is ad-supported except stuff like New York
Times and Netflix

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jrockway
The New York Times is definitely ad-supported. You can't read the articles
unless you pay, but there are still ads after you pay. It is amazing how they
can double-dip.

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DennisP
I used to kinda believe in the argument that it's too much trouble for users,
but now a single-click micropayment seems way easier than all the crap I do to
bypass soft paywalls.

(I'm not averse to paying and have a digital subscription to one national
newspaper, but paying for thirty newspapers just so I can click on reddit
links without hassle seems unreasonable.)

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hakfoo
I think the problem is still that it's friction.

I may have a hundred million pageview credits, but it's still a gnawing "This
will cost me one." It's still going to end with "we're outside the big network
and want a seperate fee."

The simplest answer is to pull the consumer from the purchasing loop. Create a
state endowment to pay artists and journalists a living wage, public-domain
all the things, and then we can browse in peace, knowing our taxes paid for
it.

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tom_mellior
I think a variant of the street performer protocol (later reinvented as
"crowdfunding", minus the idea that once something is funded, it should be
available to everyone) is the way to go.

A newspaper could put up a widget saying "these are our monthly expenses, and
here is how much in tips we have collected so far this month". People
interested in keeping the paper going would tip. Or, well, maybe not, tragedy
of the commons and everything.

The important difference to "pay per view" being that you have less of the
"this is going to cost me one" problem. You can see what the paper offers and
then pay what you think is appropriate. It does seem to work for Wikipedia.

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wiradikusuma
In my opinion, micropayment is more or less a solved problem these days, at
least on mobile.

I'm an old fart, I never understand why free games can make a _lot_ of money
from selling "powerups" and even vanity stuff like "skins", but as we all
know, it's big money.

I even don't understand people buying scratch cards/vouchers from convenience
stores with marked-up price.

TL;DR: Lots of free apps/games, yet people pay, sometimes at premium/need to
literally walk to a shop.

And, not only Google Play or Apple AppStore, WeChat and other super-apps are
also enabling micro payments.

Some issues are still valid though, such as monopoly by the middlemen.

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TACIXAT
Those aren't really micro though. You can't spend a cent digitally, much less
a fraction of a cent. The fee structure doesn't allow for it.

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coldtea
The latter (only up to cent level) shouldn't really matter. Are people that
cheap that their problem is they have to give "at least a cent"?

Sub-cent might matter for third world countries wanting to micropay for a
western content creator, but it's more than good enough for the 4+ billion of
people in developed economies.

And I'd say, relative cost-of-living considered, even someone making $100
dollars month could afford a cent payment, like a person making $3000/month
can afford a $5 latte. But I don't think many $100/month populations have "how
do I support a western content creator already living 20x as luxuriously as
me" as their concern...

So if that was the issue, we could already solve it with cent-granularity
payments....

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chabes
Multiple responses here claiming that “micropayments are solved”

Yeah, maybe for folks in Silicon Valley who have bank accounts.

What about the other few billion people?

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buboard
I think micropayments means cash, anonymous . No, my card issuer has no right
to know that i spent my hard earned cash on porn

