Responses to Clay Shirky on Micropayments 131
FrnkMit writes "Others besides Slashdotters have responded to Clay Shirky's latest article on Micropayments, including long-time micropayment booster Scott McCloud and the MIT Technology Review."
Lethargy! (Score:4, Interesting)
Fame vs. Fortune (Score:5, Interesting)
Clearly no-one will pay even a dime for content that they can get elsewhere for free. It's true that the size of the payment is less important than its simple presence.
But there are other things we happily pay for, and micropayments are a basic necessity if we want to get those things digitised and available on-line.
In Belgium, where I am, people are using premium SMS messages for micropayments. It's incredibly inefficient: a Euro1.00 message returns at most 60% to the website owner. Yet this is becoming a more and more popular way of charging for access to dating sites and other web sites people are happy, eager even, to pay for.
Micropayments to reserve parking spaces, to place small ads, to search for appartments, to post a CV to a job site, to chat with remote friends, to get news on what's happening downtown, to vote for pop starts, to play games, to access porn,... the horizons are vast and limited today only by the complexity of linking the consumer's wallet and the vendor's account.
What's missing in the micropayment world are two things, AFAICS. One is government support to mandate norms and standards backed up with legislation and consumer/supplier protection. Two is support from the banking industry in the form of accessible implementations available to small vendors.
Clay makes some good points there... (Score:2, Interesting)
Zen [amazon.com]
A missing point (Score:5, Interesting)
"A micropayment system like BitPass would allow consumers to experiment with new content but also to place their support behind specific artists whose work they find consistently rewarding and interesting. Ultimately, they are paying for only the content they consume--and not shelling out a fixed sum every month."
In other words, they see pay-as-you-go as a benefit to the consumer. Problem is, the consumer does not view it as a benefit; rather the opposite.
A number of studies have shown that people greatly prefer a fixed-cost structure over use-based payment - even when they demonstrably would save significant amounts of money by switching over. People find the need to constantly decide whether a given use is worth the money; and to feel they constantly have to monitor and aveluate their usage spending to be a burden that is disproportionate to the amount of money they would save, even when the amount is quite significant.
I know that the most liberating aspect for me of going for a fixed line, rather than using a modem, was not the speed, but rather the liberation of being online at all times, using it whenever I wanted without worrying about telephone charges (local calls are metered in most of Europe).
So, no, I do not really believe in "micropayments" in the sense they are talking about it here.
Cost-free digital publishing (Score:3, Interesting)
responses to va lairIE on pateNTdead PostBlock(tm) (Score:1, Interesting)
coming soon to/already on, yOUR desktop/network?:
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily (permanently, if we could figure out how to do it) been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, we don't care.
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alert: looks like yOUR kids have been listening to music again, you're out.
alert: although you appear to be browsing regularly, you've failed to make a purchase recently, you're out.
consider this a chance to stare at your monitor screen, & plan how you can become
etc... lookout bullow. these foulcurrs haven't a clue yet, as to what J. Public can do, once he's peaced off. they live in a tiny wwworld, consisting of only their owned greed/fear based goals. they should get ready to see the light.
we're building a vessel that floats on almost any suBStance.
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it's all free (as in survival), & available immediately to you/all of US.
as you can maybe already see, yOUR survival/success is not the least bit dependent on the gadgets/combinations of the greed/fear based corepirate nazis, & their phonIE ?pr? ?firm? buyassed
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. more breathing. vote with yOUR wallet (somtimes that means not buying anything, a notion previously unmentioned buy the greed/fear/war mongers). seek others of non-aggressive/positive behaviours/intentions. stop wasting anything/being frivolous. that's the spirit.
investigate the newclear power plan. J. Public et AL has yet to become involved in open/honest 'net communications/commerce in a meaningful way. that's mostly due to the MiSinformation suppLIEd buy phonIE ?pr? ?firm?/stock markup FraUD execrable, etc...
truth is, there's no better/more affordable/effective way that we know of, for J. to reach other J.'s &/or their respective markets.
the overbullowned greed/fear based phonIE marketeers are self eliminating by their owned greed/fear/ego based evile MiSintentions. they must deny the existence of the power that is dissolving their ability to continue their self-centered evile behaviours.
as the lights continue to come up, you'll see what we mean. meanwhile, there are plenty of challenges, not the least of which is the planet/population rescue (from the corepirate nazi/walking dead contingent) initiative.
EVERYTHING is going to change, despite the lameNT of the evile wons. you can bet your
we weren't planted here to facilitate/perpetuate the excesses of a handful of Godless felons. you already know that? yOUR ONLY purpose here is to help one another. any other pretense is totally false.
pay attention (to yOUR environment, for example). that's quite affordable, & leads to insights on preserving life as it should/could/will be again. everything's ALL about yOUR motives.
that old tune title (hope we don't get 'busted' for using it) "make the world go away", takes on new/varied meaning in these times.
the prevalent notion that 'everything will be taken care of' without yOUR knowledge/participation is insidiously misleading.
in our estimation, the biggest 'threat' against US (asid