[jancsika]

> They've been proposed all the way back to Chaum's DigiCash, but no micropayment system has ever really taken off.

If it's true that Chaum fucked up the deal to have it shipped with Windows 95, then this is a bad example.

Not saying it was ever "desperately needed." But being on everyone's computer by default, somebody would surely have found a use for it. Probably gambling, which is more than sufficient for bootstrapping.

Then it's a race: does the consequent acceleration of malware become such a nasty pain point that Microsoft just removes Digicash from the Windows 98 installer? Or does pets.com accept it as payment first, and it therefore becomes entrenched? :)

1: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/genesis-files-how-david-...

[mrguyorama]

If micropayments were really that useful to people wanting to USE them, it would be done with steam wallet funds or steam trading cards by now. That pseudo-"payment network" is good enough for illegal casinos yet nobody has ever tried to do micropayments with it, because consumers do not want to pay slices of pennies for everything, because being nickle and dimed is literally a negative idiom

NOBODY wants to pay a penny per grain of rice. People want to pay $10 for a nice bowl full of rice.

VERY FEW CONSUMERS want all news to be stuck behind a five cent paywall before you can even decide whether it's worth that. Consumers WANT to pay for "good journalism" as an abstract service.

[Ekaros]

Even more so consumers want things free... Or as cheap as they can get...

Subscriptions are one option when they are less hassle than alternatives.

And they already know where things will end up. Now it might be cents to get something, but soon there will be adds and after that the price will go up. Probably to full units...

[fragmede]

so put the 10 cent button in the middle, or at the end of the article?

microtransactions exist within the realm of individual video games already though. spend $10 to get 5000 in-game tokens and 150 tokens gets you better gear.

for the calorie and cost conscious rice eater, why should I pay $10 for a bowl when I'm only going to eat half? per-grain is ridiculous, but a la carte pricing on food isn't. Not everyone is a fan of buffets.

I don't want to pay for a whole newspaper when I'm just reading the whatever section, and micropayments would let me do that. Whether or not that's a good thing for the newspaper is a different question.

[Animats]

> microtransactions exist within the realm of individual video games already though.

Yes. That does work.

Linden Lab, the people behind Second Life, spun off their money system as a startup, called TiliaPay.[1] Tilia obtained money transfer licenses, linked up with JPMorgan Chase Payments, and offered a system where you could process a 2 cent transaction with acceptable operating costs. Unlike most "game points" programs, users can trade with each other and cash out in dollars. That's why they had to become a regulated financial operation.

It never took off. It does work, but Second Life and, to some extent, VRChat are the only real customers.

[1] https://www.tilia.io/

[jancsika]

Nobody wanted to sit in a cubicle all day playing Minesweeper, either.

But it shipped with Windows, so they did. :)