[overgard]

So I've never heard of this term until now, but actually, I can think of a use case for this I kind of like. So, pretty much daily I get linked to an article on a paywalled site that wants me to subscribe or get a free trial. And I always click away, I'm not going through the hassle of email verification or putting in my credit card for a 2 minute read. But if this supported something like "pay 25 cents to read this article", I'd probably do it. Microtransactions seems like it could be a viable use for this kind of thing?

[pavlov]

This dream of penny transactions is as old as the web — even HTTP status code 402 was reserved for this purpose [1], but a unified solution never happened.

Many startups have tried building add-ons and other solutions for this, but it doesn't seem to be a very attractive proposition to a larger user base. People seem to prefer subscriptions rather than nickel-and-diming each piece of content. (Consider how Spotify and Netflix triumphed over the iTunes Store model of 99-cent transactions.)

The blockchain backing of so-called "Web3" is not a great fit for micro-transactions because fees are very high and the networks are congested. You'd be paying several dollars in transaction fees for that 25-cent purchase, and waiting several minutes for it to go through.

Of course this can be mitigated by a centralized solution that can handle higher volumes. But then it's no different from all the micro-transaction startups that already failed.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402

[overgard]

Everyone I've talked to (and my personal feeling) is that people are kind of sick of the number of subscriptions they have and have to maintain. I think the microtransaction thing never took off not because it's a bad idea, but because it never was built-in and legit feeling and widespread. If I just had a general crypto wallet where I could add some spending money every once in a while, and I could use that to unpaywall things by clicking a button, I would totally use that.

[pavlov]

Why should it be crypto though? If e.g. Stripe offered this and you could fill it up with your credit card (which you've probably given to them already), they could reach a much larger group of users and it would be easier to use than the private-keys-and-wallets hassle of crypto.

[overgard]

It doesn't have to be crypto, but having a central corporation in charge of it no doubt creates some tensions. If Stripe or PayPal or something did offer this and it was wide enough spread to be useful I'd probably use it.

[yunohn]

While subscription fatigue is very real, I’m not sure micro transactions solves anything either. In fact, a great example is IAPs - most revenue is dominated by whales, with the rest barely transacting significantly at all.

[overgard]

IAP's basically are micro transactions though. After all, you're paying through Apple/Google and it's usually small enough amounts ($1-$10) that you can justify it to yourself. The problem with IAPs is the App part. I don't want to have to get the New York Times App to get rid of a NTY paywall.

[yunohn]

> IAP's basically are micro transactions though

That’s exactly why I used it as a good example. And I didn’t mean that NYT has to use IAPs, they could easily integrate Apple/Google Pay for frictionless micro-payments if they wanted to. It’s just that consumers wouldn’t use it.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

Blendle also solves this problem, but it’s a bit higher friction.