[BTBurke]

Here's my question - NYT could charge me $5 and then deduct from my balance on a per-article basis.

Do we need crypto to enable those transactions? If micropayments made sense, why haven't they caught on already with the payment infrastructure 99% of people already have? Micropayments via crypto are just payment with extra steps.

I'm not for/against either one. I'd just like to see a coherent argument against the idea that crypto is a solution looking for a problem.

[PretzelPirate]

I think the answer looks different when you talk about NYT (a large organization most of us probably trust to not steal) vs smaller websites/blogs. I wouldn’t pre-pay some no-name blogger $5 and trust them to charge me properly.

With the pre-pay model, you may even end up with each site dictating it’s own payment terms, which would naturally create opportunities for scammy terms that users don’t understand until their money is gone.

A tipping model incentivized quality content and keeps funds under the user’s control.

In this specific case, it looks like some Strike-related company will have custody of funds, which does defeat the purpose of using a decentralized payment method.

[wskinner]

Most of the world does not have access to cheap and easy dollar-denominated payments. Using Bitcoin for this simplifies the implementation for Twitter, and reduces fees.

[mdoms]

Most of the world has credit and debit cards. Or, at least, most of the world where people have enough disposable income to shell out for NYT articles. I don't live in a country that deals in USD but I have a debit card and very often buy services denominated in USD.

[DylanBohlender]

Fees and chargebacks are the ones that usually come to mind. Oftentimes major credit card provider networks set a "minimum" interchange fee to disincentivize small transactions (a chargeback on a ten-cent transaction is often not worth the squeeze from a support/processing perspective).

Basically all major payment networks are facilitated by a middleman of some sort, and that middleman entity usually has operational costs that disincentivize them from offering micropayments.

Your point about a "balance" lands though - nothing stops NYT from making one "big" charge and then deducting from it other than consumer psychology (paying $10 up front can feel different than paying $0.05 at a time, for example).

[orf]

Imagine a world where not everyone used the dollar. Then imagine having to support different currencies and ensuring that your price per article stayed in line with currency fluctuations.

[Ekaros]

Translate the payments to some abstract credits with consistent rate across currencies. Then just forex the money received to euros or dollars or what ever your local currency is.

Actually, there is already a massive platform that does this sort of thing with what really are microtransactions too and even in local currencies, namely Steam.

[orf]

Yep, and I bet that’s non trivial and takes a lot of resources to maintain. Selling games is also their core business.

Seems like a cryptocurrency fits nicely into “abstract credits with a consistent rate across currencies”.

[mdoms]

Why would you have to support different currencies?

[imtringued]

Youtube has an international audience.

[mdoms]

All of whom can pay in USD with a credit card.

[orf]

That statement is so untrue that it borders on arrogance.