

Hey Google - samh
http://www.samonsoftware.com/?p=489

======
patio11
Google actually runs the world's largest micropayment service. It solves all
of the classical problems with micropayments, and will probably ensure that no
sub-$1 micropayment service ever gets developed:

1) Payments are aggregated at macro-scales so that the service can efficiently
run on top of the legacy payments infrastructure without leaking double-digit
percentages in interchange fees.

2) End users are never prompted for credentials or to authorize a payment.
They get a frictionless experience which feels _exactly_ like clicking a
regular link in their browser. In surveys, most don't understand they are not
clicking a regular link in their browser, which is exactly the way Google
likes it.

3) End users aren't actually charged money (they pay with attention), so there
is no need to pay customer support drones to deal with disputes over 3 cent
line-items, like there is if you e.g. have disputes between workers and
clients on Amazon Turk.

4) Prices are computed by Google automatically in real time, which means
vendors don't need to try to maintain revenue maximizing price points for
Chilean visitors using Firefox to an article about dog washing.

5) Google's micropayment service solved the marketplace chicken-and-egg
problem by Google using it on their own page first -- one of the most popular
on the Internet, letting buyers sign up for Google, and then let other
publishers use it on their pages and automatically tap into the buyers already
signed up by Google.

This ridiculously successful service probably sucks all the life out of the
market for sub-$1 micropayments. (I would never have expected $1 ~ $10
micropayments to work well, either, but Zynga et al have pretty decisively
proven me wrong in the last few years.)

~~~
m_eiman
Too bad they require you to put ads on your site.

It'd be nice if they would make it possible to pay them a chunk of money that
they'll distribute to places I visited in more or less the same way they do
with ad money now, only I wouldn't have to see the ads.

Sort of what Flattr is doing, only automated.

------
user24
site wouldn't load for me, tried a few refreshes. Couldn't find it cached on
google, so I'm pasting the content here.

Hey Google

You used to be a toolmaker. You used to be all about organising information.
What happened ?

Forget competing with Facebook and go make some amazing new tools.

Creating a successful social networking site is like starting a successful new
nightclub, it isn’t about solving problems it’s about being cool, and being
cool ain’t what you’re about.

You’ve got cash and smart people so go invent some bad-ass new tool to take on
a really big problem.

Google PagePay

Micro-payments, so bloggers can charge half a cent (or pence if you roll that
way) for someone to read a full post.

Mirco-payments would change the world, a whole bunch of stuff that isn’t
monetizable would become monetizable, a whole bunch of people would be able to
get paid for doing what they love.

Solve the "I love to do it but I can’t get paid for it problem".

Google Cred (ibility)

Use your mad data props and data mining skillz to record and assess
predictions made by pundits and public ‘experts’.

Google can tell me what I want to know it’s time it helped me work out who was
worth listening to.

"Won’t added accountability cause people to be less likely to make public
predictions ???" Good, if it causes people with back predictive powers to stop
talking as if they were experts that’s a win.

And how great is it going to be to find out that the most reliable economic
predictor didn’t go to standford, it’s some guy who no one has ever heard of
who runs a beans farm in some out of the way place.

Solve the "Who do I listen to" problem.

~~~
user24
("edit": site looks back up now)

------
phreeza
The guys at Flattr are trying something similar to "PagePay"

<http://flattr.com/>

~~~
chanux
I'm happy to see flattr succeeding than Google doing it.

~~~
alphaoverlord
When you said that, I just naturally assumed flattr succeeding and then Google
imitating it.

Like Facebook Questions vs. Quora, Google Places vs. Yelp, etc. It's hard to
compete with behemoths.

------
snth
I wish this guy had proofread his article. The typos were distracting.

------
redstripe
People can already "PagePay" by clicking ads. However most don't bother even
though they are not paying with their own money. So there is definitely a
problem to solve here and I don't think it's just general human stinginess.

A "like" button that transfers money to the content producer with minimal UI
interference would be a nice thing to try and google is the ideal company to
experiment with this.

~~~
chc
Empty clicks with no intention of buying just make your site look like a bad
source of leads. Not sure it's ideal as a way of "paying" somebody.

------
nhnifong
Here's a prediction by a pundit for you: When intelligence becomes cool, it
will have no more time to work on it's hobbies. Solve that problem Google.

------
greyman
>> Forget competing with Facebook and go make some amazing new tools.

I agree.

>> Micro-payments, so bloggers can charge half a cent (or pence if you roll
that way) for someone to read a full post.

Micropayments dream, again? ;-) Didn't that failed every time it was tried?

------
Emore
"Google Cred" sounds a lot like what Recorded Future is up to (a company
which, it turns out, Google has invested in).

<https://www.recordedfuture.com/>

------
endtime
Klout is solving the cred/influence problem already. They're growing
remarkably fast.

------
KeithMajhor
I wish Google would turn on all it's dark fiber <[http://news.cnet.com/Google-
wants-dark-fiber/2100-1034_3-553...](http://news.cnet.com/Google-wants-dark-
fiber/2100-1034_3-5537392.html>). I'm tired of charter, the service is
terrible...

------
Ardit20
Predictions are hardly a problem. They are fun, we are wired to make them, we
have foresight so why not use it. The point when making a prediction is not to
be right, but to go through mental scenarios of possibilities based on the
present and try and make a rational decision based on that.

And, if someone made a correct prediction in the past, it does not mean he
will in the future. Life is great because amongst other things it can take you
by complete surprise.

Anyway, that hardly would be on the list of "problems". And google is mainly a
service provider than a tool maker. The main service which is search and
advertising both of which have plenty of problems which would significantly
improve people's life way above predictions. If they solve the many problems
of search I would be way happier than if they told me in some sort of big
brother way who said what when and why he was wrong and who is right and who
should I believe and...

Just keep your feet to the ground google. The world is not yours to occupy,
you know mighty empires have tried and failed. Just retain your focus if you
may.

As for the micro payments, I was doing some data analysis yesterday and it
does come to 0.5 cent per user from advertising revenue. So requesting micro
payments might be an annoyance by requiring logging in at all times, etc. Even
if the system was so as to not disturb me at all, I would rather not have to
pay 0.5 cent. It seems nothing of course, but god knows how many articles I
read a day. Especially since the web master hardly would gain much. It might
be perhaps a good idea to be an alternative for the user to choose a non ad
version of a site and pay 0.5c to do so. I doubt it would catch on though. The
internet wants to and needs to be free. Its popularity and usefulness is
dependent on the free consumption of information supported by advertising.

Now, google could of course lower the share it gets from ads on sites, I mean,
they have a really high profit margin and it is a little bit selfish of them.

