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)
Obligatory PA (Score:5, Funny)
(P.S. If you read the news article that goes with it, you'll see that the comic is actually about micropayments.)
Re:Obligatory PA (Score:1)
Micropayment? (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot cliche? (Score:2, Funny)
The problem with standards... (Score:5, Insightful)
A govenrment endosed system, like paper currency? (Score:2)
Micropayments might be more appealing if managed by 'public trust' rather than 'dot-com.'
I haven't entirely thought it through, but is that better? Worse?
Or how about asking the banks? (Score:3, Insightful)
On the face of it, government involvement seems like a good idea. However, what about all we non-US citizens? Could we all count on our respective governments to cooperate and allow micropayments to really flourish? Or will 'international' users find themselves unable to access bits of the web?
I'd much rather see the internet community develop a useful standard that can be easily adopted by vendors...perhaps such a thing already exists? A technological solution is always better than a government mandate.
Re:A govenrment endosed system, like paper currenc (Score:2)
Well, just like (most) other countries don't use the dollar, it seems like each could have it's own micropayment.
Perahps the micropayment value could be hitched to the national currency value, and so the exchange rates would follow between countries, just like regular money does.
Re:The problem with standards... (Score:2)
Re:The problem with standards... (Score:2)
Many of these people working on micropayments seem to think it's just another way to collect payments for what amounts to a subscription, or a pre-paid content scheme. Most of the current premium sites and micropayment schemes fail to take the occasional visitor into accou
Microfraud (Score:5, Insightful)
But perhaps some clever fraudster will see an opportunity here. Wouldn't it be easy to steal 1 cent a month from 1,000,000 people who use micropayments? After all, who's going to notice a line item titled "News article ----- $0.01"? So there's $10,000/month that nobody's really going to miss.
And for a single penny, would most people take the time to make a phone call or write an email to request clarification on where that charge originated? Even if all you make is a pitiful $3.60/hour, that one penny takes a mere 6 seconds to earn, far shorter than the time it would take to investigate. And is the micropayment company going to investigate your 1 cent dispute? Likely they would ignore you or even just automatically refund your penny without much thought.
Re:Microfraud (Score:4, Insightful)
Correct! I did the sums on this a while back, and at $0.01 per transaction, you don't have much room for things to go wrong. You need a lot of transactions to amortise your fixed costs, which means a few big micropayment services rather than many small ones. Once you figure a crack for one of the big payment services, you can cream it pretty much at will, because as you so rightly point out, the cost of investigating any given transaction vastly outweighs the cost of the transaction.
You'd need about 10,000 transactions from one source before it's worth taking action, but then the question becomes: how much do you spend to find and associate those 10,000 fraudulent transactions? The only real strategy is to ignore all but the most blatant and clumsy fraud, but then it's simply a question of whether you can cover your fixed costs while being bled slowly to death.
MIcropayments are based on trust, and that's in pretty short supply online.
Re:Microfraud (Score:2)
If you used a distributed trust mechanism (not Passport!) that authenticated both buyer and seller, perhaps a sufficient paper trail can be established so that persistent fraud can be more easily detected. I wonder if this would ultimately result in micropayment systems becoming part of a credit-reporting system like we have for credit cards & loans, where buyers and sellers can set thresholds to prevent transactions with "bad
Re:Microfraud (Score:2)
Re:Microfraud (Score:1)
You mean... 6 minutes!
This validates Clay Shirky's point... when talking about very small sums of money, you easily make wrong calculations of its value. And I'm the first to notice this, the others just nodded and made the comment +5, Insightful.
Re:Microfraud (Score:1)
Re: People with really poor math skills (Score:2)
- 1 hour = 60 minutes = 3600 seconds
- $3.60 = 360 cents
- 3600 seconds / 360 cents = 10 seconds / cent
Therefore, the one penny takes 10 seconds.So neither of you were right, but the OP was closer.
Re: People with really poor math skills (Score:2)
So neither of you were right, but the OP was closer.
See how easy it is? I defrauded hundreds of intelligent slashdotters out of 4 seconds and only one person realized it.
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.
Re:Fame vs. Fortune (Score:2)
I think that depends on what you mean by "free". For example, I don't consider my time and effort to be worth nothing. Maybe all the hassle of clicking on a "pay 15c" button is more useful to me than 20 minutes spend poring through search engine results?
If I'm downloading a large piece of software, for example, I likely would pay 10c if it meant I'd get a faster download.
Or webcomics... there are free ones, and the
Re:Fame vs. Fortune (Score:1)
I looked up some price quotes - e.g. this PDF about mBlox premium SMS services [mblox.com]. 600 Euro setup, about 400 Euro rent per month, and payout rates as low as 1 cent on a 25 cent message... ugh. The best payout is 38 cent on a 1 euro message.
Clay makes some good points there... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Clay makes some good points there... (Score:2)
As mentioned above [slashdot.org], voluntary payments with or without small bonuses are a way to go. I subscribe to SlashDot and I dontate to the operators of a free website I browse regularly.
Re:Clay makes some good points there... (Score:2)
Someone forced you to pay to read
Here's the post you were replying to:
I don't think I have ever subscribed to online content where I had to pay money.
If you read Clay's article, you'll see that you're making his point for him.
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.
Re:A missing point (Score:2)
Which consumer? I see pay-as-you-go as beneficial in many, although not all, situations.
So when you go out to dinner you always go to the same restaurant where you pay
Re:A missing point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A missing point (Score:1)
Some other places talking about it... (Score:4, Informative)
Metafilter [metafilter.com]
Les Jones [lesjones.com]
Bruce Landon - landonline [weblogs.com]
City Comforts Blog [typepad.com]
Marginal Revolution [marginalrevolution.com]
Long story; short pier [longstoryshortpier.com]
Tom Maszerowski on Livejournal [livejournal.com]
bbCity.co.uk [bbcity.co.uk]
IMNSHO (Score:3, Insightful)
But cutting to the chase, if a good micropayment system does get invented, then it will seriously lower the bar on the "tip jar" concept. The overhead of deciding whether you want to spend a cent here and a cent there (especially on a site that you can't sample for free) is enough of a headache (even at low risk levels) to drive people away, but if your favourite webcomic has a tip jar, you might throw in a dime a day, or even a penny a day (he said, shamelessly resorting to Americanisms). Those things can add up if you have a big readership, and can overcome the expenses that Mr McCloud points out with regards to bandwidth and success being its own worst enemy.
As for the sites that want to try the "you must pay me 25 cents in order to see this page" approach -- feh -- let them take their chances with the free market; I won't resent them in the unlikely case that it works. But in my not-particularly-humble opinion, voluntary payments [pbs.org] will be the way to go (see second and second-last paragraph of linked Cringely article).
Re:IMNSHO (Score:1)
I can't see micropayments ever working better than a subscription model for serial long term opt in, and if there's a free site/list I like I'm going to be a lot happier occasionally buying a tshirt, piece of software, a mug, CD, picture or book to show my app
Well I signed up... (Score:1, Insightful)
Personally I'd rather pay 25c to give a site a try than give away my credit card details and subscribe for a year to a site I might never read.
And you can join BitPass using PayPal - so its hardly difficult. And yes I have. And yes it is worth 25c.
Beyond PayPal? (Score:1)
Even though a BitPass keeps you from having to give your credit card information, you still have to pay with a credit card OR with PayPal, and you still have to give information you may not want to give to PayPal. Bottom line - at some point you have to give someone information you don't want to give them.
I think the only way this will ever work is if you can actually BUY a BitPass at (insert omnipresent retail outlet here). If a BitPass were l
Cost-free digital publishing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cost-free digital publishing (Score:1)
Ahh, Slashdot, I should have listened to you.
FREE BANDWIDTH (Score:2)
Especially for a comic artist, where the content is inherently visual, it would NOT be hard to adopt a distribution mechanism that was, essentially, free. Put a panel on every comic linking to the author's site: those who like the content will visit, those who don't, won't. Put up a tipjar, or even offer an "early bird" subscription service (ie get the next edition a week before the "free" channels, etc.). Because casual fans can get the comic completely free of cha
Re:Cost-free digital publishing (Score:1)
You don't need graphics or javascripts or a shitload of meta tags.
The article itself doesn't take much (maybe 1000-2000 bytes for a 500-word article using embedded gzip). The sidebar or links don't take that much either (use plain HTML, and keep paths reasonably short).
All in all, 2,500 bytes might be used per hit, so you could serve 400,000 hits/GB. I'll assume web bandwidth is $1/GB, which would put the cost of a hit at 2.5 u$ (microdollar, or
Art IS a commodity (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny though that Dictionary.com has a rather interesting definition [reference.com] of the word "commodity" with relation to McCloud's comments, but I'm sure that McCloud tries to say that a commodity is "something that you can just take for granted".
We may not realize this, but our "modern" culture, like any other culture before it, relies on the availability of the art that underwrites it. Belonging to a culture is still something that is expressed through music, art, fashion and religion. People don't like restricted access to culture. Music, cartoons, whatever art it is that you like, it becomes part of your life, and part of your culture. (Striking example: how many `80's songs do you like to hear, while you agree at the same time that they suck -- just because you grew up in the `80's and you can share something with your friends through this music?)
Life, even in our Western world, would not be so nice if we all threw out our stereos, radios, comic strips, TV's, bioscopes, monuments and ALL other ways in which we access art, and thus culture.
Art is a gift to culture, and should thus be a gift to the people. Like anyone else, artists should make a living. They should definately find some way to calculate their hours of work into their products. But the art should be free for all of us willing to enjoy and extend it (bar stuff like trademarks that put some structure in the "development process" of our art).
Now get out there and start making business models again!
Re:Art IS a commodity (Score:1)
Donations (Score:1)
Micropayments are already successful (Score:3, Insightful)
People will pay for content if it's something they actually want. Micropayments using a prepaid scheme are much more attractive than conventional credit-card systems because they are (a) anonymous, (b) transferrable, and (c) cheap.
I think the discussion in the article is entirely skewed because the author looks only at conventional content, and even a cursory look at the Internet demonstrates that supply far outweighs demand: there is an almost inexhaustible supply of prose, music, humour, and news. Why would you register for such content, let alone pay for it?
Basic economics: make something people want, and can't get elsewhere, and they will come and pay for it.
Blaming the payments scheme for weak products that no-one wants is surely a mistake.
Anonymity (Score:2)
These systems are absolutely not anonymous. Most payment systems require affiliation with either a bank or a credit agency, which means every single purchase can be tracked.
I think the discussion in the article is entirely skewed because the author looks only at conventional content, and even a cursory look at the Internet demonstrates that supply far outweighs demand: there is a
TWO newsgroups? (Score:2)
But seriously, your point is well taken. However, newsnet only serves porn to a select market, namely geeks, while there is a huge population of one-handed surfers out there who would not know a uuencoded jpeg if it hit them on the ass.
Also, I have seen several adult pass systems that sell in nightshops, and this is entirely, totally anonymous. Buy a token in a shop, use it to micropurchase. And AFAICS it's only for porn
usenet isn't just for geeks (Score:2)
Easynews has become the god of usenet. They're huge. And they're not the only one. There are several newsgroup services offering a user friendly web interface these days, and it's attracting a LOT of people. Hell, I don't even use news reader software for most groups these days - it's far easier to fire up reget and shop via the web.
So far as the user is concerned usenet is now the web. If you want to talk you
yEnc (Score:2)
Re:Micropayments are already successful - NOT (Score:1)
Really? Which sites offer micropayments? I see lots that have subscription services, but none that use micropayments.
Perhaps you should read his article?
People will pay for content if it's something they actually want.
Again, read the article - he's not saying that "nobody will pay" - he's talking about how they'll pay.
I think the discussion in the article is entirely skewed be
Without real e-currency it's all speculation (Score:2)
When I use the term "currency" I don't mean some private company's wishful thinking about taking over the job of the federal government. Anybody who thinks that the establishment of the currency is not the job of the federal government and can be left to Citibank or Banc America has a very limited grasp of the Constitution. And as for some Johnny-come-lately start up is
micropayments -- not good for consumers (Score:2)
As a micropaymen
Re:micropayments -- not good for consumers (Score:1)
Flat rate packages provide a great value for the consumer and also simplify the consumer's finances. There is good reason that millions of consumers are moving to flat rate service providers.
Not all of them - I had a good chuckle some time ago when a local Internet provider/media company launched their offer of rated dialup without a fixed fee. Their reasoning was that people hate paying monthly fees and would rather pay-per-use, something, against which I as an ex-dialup and ISDN user can testify!
The Problem - New Visitors (Score:3, Insightful)
To read The Right Number, you have to sign up for the BitPass micropayment system; once you have an account, the comic itself costs 25 cents.
Right there. Did you see that? That's the problem with micropayments.
I don't know this guy and I don't know his comics. Why am I going to hand him a quarter to read his stuff?
Sure, if he is already established in his niche on the 'net, he can make a good living. But, if you are just starting our, micropayments will guarantee the death of your site. No one will pay for a site, um, sight unseen.
I'd love for people to pay a penny to read my weekly London Journal [colingregorypalmer.net], but I know if I asked for it first, I would never get any new visitors.
Re:The Problem - New Visitors (Score:1)
I also think that micropayments are usefull for providing higher quality versions of media that is already available for free; higher res comics, or higher bitra
Re:The Problem - New Visitors (Score:1)
No mention of privacy (Score:1, Insightful)
Unless they can figure out how to deduct micropayments from a phone card or some other device that can be bought locally for cash over the counter, they better nix that idea but quick. Come to think of it, there's no good
Re:There is no right to privacy (Score:2)
Re:No, there is none (Score:2)
Re:No mention of privacy (Score:1)
The power of feeling good (Score:3)
If you are walking down the stret and someone asks you for a penny, would you always give it to them? Every time? It's just a penny - if you saw a penny lying in the street odds are you wouldn't even bother to pick it up, unless perhaps to feed your superstitious side. Maybe we ordinarily would but have already given out all the pennies we had in our pocket. Maybe we have an ethical objection to handing out pennies to whomever asks for one. Or maybe we're just having a bad day and don't want to be bothered. Still, one can reasonable argue the simple act of giving someone a penny should be well within the capabilities of even the poorest of us.
But once you move online that penny represents an entirely new barrier. It represents the wall between those who play the system (however badly) and those played by the system. Not everyone has a credit card. Not everyone has a debit card. Furthermore, many people, despite the fact they could have one of these wallet size icons of mass consumerism, don't want one. And it's not because they don't like buying stuff, or because they're too cheap to give you a penny if you were to ask them face to face.
Charging for content online places a barrier between the creator and the audience that goes much deeper than the same model in meatspace. And it's not necessarily an economic one, although it very much can be. Mostly, tho, it's a barrier of philosophy, and it sets the wrong tone for the future so many of us allege to believe in.
The entire promise of this new distribution mechanism is it puts creators more directly in touch with consumers. That some creators are going to work within existing economic structures is to be expected and, frankly, I say more power to'em. But this is a choice for the creator that does not directly involve me: if someone puts banner ads on their site to help them pay the bills, that involves me only passively. Moving to an escrow agent, however, forces the consumer (me) to play an active role in that exchange - even when "it's just a penny" and even when the mechanism is "transparent" at the point of sale.
Re:The power of feeling good (Score:2)
Then use a micropayment service that doesn't require one. Perhaps your ISP could offer one? Or maybe your Telco, Bank, University, anyone who you're already paying for services could, and just add it to your bill. Maybe you could buy $5 prepay micropayment cards at the gas station...
- Muggins the Mad
la machine (Score:2)
Re:The power of feeling good (Score:2)
That won't work. For example, I have an account on a system that can be used to pay on-line, PayPal. But I can't buy McCloud's work, because he doesn't accept PayPal. I don't have to just have a micropayment account, I have to have one that the person I'm trying to buy from accepts. So unless there's only one or two systems out there that everyone accepts, there's the barrier of having to set up Yet Another Banking Account.
Re:The power of feeling good (Score:1)
You make very good points.
Shirky is correct.
The other articles linked to don't seem to make a good case. They seem to argue that micropayments will succeed because content producers need them to succeed. But in a marketplace that is driven by consumers, not producers, that's not much of an argument.
Shirky is right on in his discussion of "mental transaction costs." I think another way to view the same phenomenon is as a bunch of toll booths on the Information Highway. Driving from Washington,
Re:Where would micropayments end? (Score:1)
Imagine some sort of transceiver device in your automobile which automaticaly changes micropayment tolls just for going down certain roads.
I take it you mean something like this proposal [guardian.co.uk] or this item [t-e.nu] that were recently put forth in the UK?
Good stuff? (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree. If I type in 'good weblogs' to google, I still get a bunch of crap I'm not interested in. Why? Because my idea of a good weblog doesn't necessarily match up with everyone else's.
responses to va lairIE on pateNTdead PostBlock(tm) (Score:1, Interesting)
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Mobile phones are the key to microplayments (Score:3, Informative)
I am currently involves in implementing micropayments for gaming services, and it works great.
You get what you pay for (Score:2)
Good free content on the internet at the moment is supported basically by advertising. Either directly through banners or google ads, or indirectly, through advertising some offline publication or organisation. Newspa
Re:You get what you pay for (Score:2)
Wishful thinking (Score:2)
1. It's good for them (i.e., they get money)
2. They desperately WANT micropayments to work because it would be good for them
(aka "Wishful Thinking")
A year from now, when BitPass has joined a dozen other companies on the micropayment scrapheap, Scott's wishful thinking will continue to prevent him from recognizing the fundamental flaws that d
Prepayment and revenue sharing (Score:2)
There would also have to be the option of anonymous transactions, which could be accomplished by
subscription or micropayments? (Score:1)
The question isn't whether we will pay for content: We already are.
By and large most of us do not pay for content. How many of us buy magazines that are supported primarily by subscribers? They do exist, and their sales are marginal.
We tend to pay for the physical item or the name or other costs. Why else would we have no problem paying a dollar for a newspaper, but nothing to get it online.
In others, we may prefer to pay
Re:subscription or micropayments? (Score:1)
During the dotcom boom, you could make a case that you did not pay for advertising-supported content, because the money for the advertising was coming from, in large part, venture capital funds. Today a far larger share of advertising dollars are coming from the revenue that companies generate by selling products.
There might as well be a line item on e
Self-observation: I fit Shirky's pattern (Score:2)
Frankly, $0.25 per comic seems a little high to me. After all, the dead-tree Boston Globe costs $0.50 and contains more than 25 comic strips (only $0.02 each), at least five of which I really like and read every day.
And I found out that I can't just buy $0.25 worth of BitPass, I need to commit to $3.00 worth. And I thought about it a little, and tried to decide
Why doesn't McCloud accept PayPal directly? (Score:2)
Why can't I just use PayPal to purchase an individual copy of "The Right Number?"
If the payment involved fractional cents, I could understand it, but as far as I know it is perfectly practical to use PayPal for payments of $0.25.
Indeed, when I originally signed up for PayPal they specifically said this was one of the ways it was intended to be used and explained ho
What is a micropayment? (Score:2)
For example consider the following question about minimum credit card charges [bayarea.com]. The retailer says that she pays Visa 3 percent of charges
Shirky's Folly (Score:3, Insightful)
By way of setting up a straw man, Shirky asks: "Would you pay 25 cents to view a VR panorama of the Matterhorn?" As if one's personal preference for Matterhorn photography had anything to do with the success or failure of micropayments.
Make no mistake; like ALL business ventures, some people will fail with micropayments. Some will fail because they didn't know how to market their product, or because they set their prices too high or too low. But so what? That's endemic to capitalism, not just micropayments. Just because Crystal Pepsi failed doesn't mean capitalism itself is a failure. Engaging in these kind of arguments is a beginner's mistake, and most of Shirky's thoughts on micropayments surprisingly and unfortunately exhibit this same kind of sloppy thinking.
His "mental transaction costs" argument, for example, is predicated on users being forced to engage in one or two cent transactions every time they want to view a page. But most micro advocates have abandoned this line of thought. The idea of charging a penny-per-page is history. What they want in the 21st century is the ability to sell their products -- songs and webcomics, mostly -- at a fair price. And micropayments enable them to do that. Shirky endlessly flogs the dead horse penny-a-page model, but conveniently ignores the 99-cents-a-song model that's made iTunes Music Store such a success.
Scott McCloud himself writes that 1,354 readers bought Part One of "The Right Number" at 25 cents a pop. Considering that he was the very first BitPass seller ever, and that everyone who wanted to see his comic had to go through the effort of signing up for BitPass, that's remarkable, and worth talking about. It certainly flies in the face of Shirky's assertion that consumers on the internet are so lazy and indiscriminate in their tastes that they'll bolt to free content at the first opportunity. Scott's readers had to not only pay, but go through the effort of risking $3 signing up for a new, untested service. Scott's experience demonstrates that failure to get people to pay for your product has everything to do with your relationship to your audience and nothing to do with micropayments. But Shirky ignores it all the same.
Finally, Shirky's views on micropayments completely fail to address the idea that micropayments can work with other forms of payment, such as subscriptions or bundling, instead of replacing them. Buying content ala carte may be the step that convinces you to subscribe to a site, for example. Micropayments aren't an either/or, they're an and. One more choice, not one less. And of course, micropayments can work exceptionally well alongside free content. Any public television pledge drive shows this principle in action; even small tchotchkes can induce many people to donate. Any thoughtful analysis of the future of micropayments ought to examine this phenomenon, but Shirky doesn't.
In some ways, it's nice to see that Shirky hasn't changed his tune. At least he's willing to go down with the ship. But his analysis is -- by any standard -- unbelievably shallow. As the market for micropayment content increases, it will be interesting to see how he tries to spin reality.
Re:Shirky's Folly (Score:1)
In the meatworld, in many circumstances, you can see (and maybe handle) the fruit before you buy it. Similarly, you can leaf through a book or magazine. There's an intermediate stage in the transaction between locating the product and purchase.
Micropayment schemes that don't include a limited element of try-before-you-buy can never emulate the elements of serendipity and of shopping that
Anything on bitpass other than Mcloud? (Score:2)
Re:Anything on bitpass other than Mcloud? (Score:1)
Re:Anything on bitpass other than Mcloud? (Score:1)
Transactions are not free (Score:1)
The primary problem is that it is very difficult to create a financially profitable micropayment system for the operator. If you look at banks (in Finland we have a very efficient direct bank transfer system, top of the world, not cheques) and credit unions, they can not really handle anything less than several euros. Telcos are actually the most skilled profit makers on small transactions, but even their limit is around 10 - 30 cents.
It is possible to push the co
Scott's Real Gripe (Score:1)
"Until then, we're left with a patchwork of hobbyists, bloggers, corporate promo, online mail-order and desperate screaming pop-up ads. The artists among us are relegated to noble failures and lovable martyrs--giving away their art for nothing 'til the rent is due and they have to go back to flipping burgers. I know far too many of these people to accept Shirky's placid scenario. They're tired, they're frustrated, and they're quitting in droves."
Well... yeah, that's t
Fame vrs Fortune (Score:1)
I've not really tried hard enough yet but thinking of BitPass,
Cost vs. Value. (Score:3, Insightful)
The inefficiency of all electronic payment system is huge.
Bitpass charges between 5 - 15%, and it's one of the best in terms of money taken out of the system.
-- this is not a
Both are right (Score:2)
McCloud is right, and Shirky is right.
McCloud is right, people will pay the kind of sums he's talking about for the kind of content he's talking about. It's already happening. The caveat is that McCloud's talking about a certain type of content, that satisfies one of two conditions:
Shirky's right, because the majori
Re: (Score:2)
IT Conversation on Micropayments (Score:1)
I bought it, it's worth it. (Score:1)
Re:Harry Goz, Sealab 2021 voice actor, dead at 71 (Score:2)
http://slashdot.org/~diesel_jackass/journal/45956 [slashdot.org]