e-Claire

Micro-payments ?!?

Would you pay 50¢ or less to read a magazine article, watch a video news clip, or buy the latest Dilbert strip online?

So throw out your current conceptions of Web surfing. Rather than sifting through pop-up ads and subscription offers, imagine dropping a quarter on an independent film, video game, specialized database, or more powerful search engine. If programmers and Web artists could profitably charge a few cents at a time, their businesses could flourish. And with an easy way for users to buy a richer variety of content, experts say, the current deadlock over digital piracy could effectively dissolve, giving way to a multibillion-dollar business stream that rejuvenates the wider entertainment industry the same way video rentals did Hollywood in the 1980s.

Talk about being nibbled to death by ducks. Hell, I won't even register to read an article. You?

1. Yet another example of hope transcending reality.

   Posted by ATinNM  on  11/21/03  at  05:43 AM

2. I’d like an email system that charged a few cents per outgoing and maybe one cent per incoming.

   That would be a “spaminator.”

   Posted by The Commissar  on  11/21/03  at  06:27 AM

3. The hopeless rag that passes for anewspaper here just started registering people so I know longer view their content.  It is utter prolix anyway.

   Posted by Jay  on  11/21/03  at  06:31 AM

4. Amazingly enough, my IP seems to have completely satisfactory spam protection.  If they can do it, so can everyone else.

   Posted by Claire  on  11/21/03  at  06:36 AM

5. Amazingly enough, my IP seems to have completely satisfactory spam protection. If they can do it, so can everyone else.

   Is that the case, or do you simply not engage in behaviors that commonly attract the usual run of spam—participate in newsgroups, for example?

   Posted by  on  11/21/03  at  11:20 AM

6. And on the thread topic—I don’t object to micropayments, and I’d be happy to make micropayments.  What I object to is the cumbersome and irritating setting up of an account with separate passwords and handles.  Particularly those that reject your chosen handles and passwords but never give any feedback on the criteria they use to accept or reject.  Or even which one doesn’t meet their criteria.  Give me a single account I can use to access any microcharging source, and I’ll go along with it.

   Posted by  on  11/21/03  at  11:23 AM

7. I’m in thorough agreement with Bil P—and I’m still not payin’ !!

   Posted by Claire  on  11/22/03  at  09:33 AM

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