[njarboe]

A universal system of micro-payments could help change the system or at least provide support to alternative systems. I want to pay for things I use to support the creator and to signal that it is valuable. Unfortunately, all the efforts in creating micro-payments have failed (in the US?). Seems to me this is a place where the controller of the local currency (in the US, the Fed/Federal government) should set up a system. It would only take one nation with a floating exchange rate to set up a working micro-payment system and it could become the defacto global online currency. Many nations would quickly follow. Come on Canada, do this.

[zamber]

It would have to be an opt-out system, like advertising is (blockers), otherwise profit from micropayments wouldn't accumulate to anything sensible.

Arguably it doesn't even matter () because it's more profitable to run advertising along with donations/micropayments to diversify revenue streams. This also doesn't solve the issue of views as currency and the optimizations it drags along.