[fauigerzigerk]

Yes there will always be room for new applications (web or not) or kitchen appliances for that matter.

Don't make me think about my kitchen! it's awful! I can't seem to keep it clean and the traditional solution to this problem, marriage, has apparently run its course. My girlfriend is a software geek as well and hates to clean the kitchen (and vacuuming) even more than I do. So where is that long promised robot revolution? Bring it on!

And where is that website that lets me auction my food orders, to be delivered by the best bidder? And knowing about the food I eat, the site could also tell me which nutrients I'm supposed to consume more of and which ready meals contain them, excluding the ones I hate.

There are so many old unsolved problems. Anonymous hassle free micropayments for instance...

[icky]

> Anonymous hassle free micropayments for instance...

Someone please make this, much lighterweight than PayPal, and saturate the market with it. Add a prepaid micropayment card anyone can buy at a store with cash.

This is one of the things that I have great interest in using (both as a user and as a client), but not so interested in building and running it myself! :-/

[fauigerzigerk]

The prepaid card is a good idea. And I wonder whether it is always necessary to authorise individual payments. For something like newspaper articles, payments could be pooled and transferred en bloc via some kind clearing mechanism that doesn't require me to have an account with every magazine or website I read. The seller wouldn't even know who was paying and the clearing institution wouldn't know what exactly is being paid for.

The reason why nobody does it that way is probably that it's difficult to garantee settlement and the credit risk involved. But do we really need such a garantee in cases where no physical goods are delivered? Maybe it's enough if it works in 90 % of all cases. That's more than the rate of legally acquired software licenses today.