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Ask HN: Why aren't micropayments a thing?

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Re: Ask HN: Why aren't micropayments a thing?

#81

Post by lisper »

> why can't news sites just charge you $0.01 to read an article, or even half that

They can. See https://blendle.com/, though the going rate there is considerably more than 0.01. But that's a question of pricing, not of logistics. The way it works is that you pay a small-ish lump sum up front and then you draw down that balance in small increments. That is different from true micropayments where you can send small amounts to anyone on demand, but it's a proven model.

The real problem is that to scale this beyond payments to a fixed set of vendors you basically need a license from the federal government. You need to either be a bank or a money-transfer agent, and both of those have extremely high barriers to entry, basically insurmountable, mainly to prevent money laundering, which is the tough nut that no one has been able to crack.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't micropayments a thing?

#82

Post by onion2k »

acjacobson wrote: post #37
posguy wrote: post #4

Processing a credit card costs $0.02 per card, plus interchange of up to 3%. Debit processing is $0.22 cents plus 0.05%. Both of these are the baseline cost, your merchant processor often won't be able to even get these rates for their own wholesale rates. Now try and build a micropayments ecosystem ontop of this infrastructure that is very expensive to interact with (in the context of $0.01 charges). Amazon can do i…

The answer to this, which I am a little surprised no one has tried to implement (maybe someone has tried?), is to charge the end customer in some larger amount - say $5 or $10, and then draw down the micro transaction amount as you go. So if you could pay $5 a month (or at a time) but gain access to every article, site, video, piece of content etc, and it auto deducts from your balance then you don't have the transac…

Bitpass was an early micropayment startup that was around for a few years. Beanz and Flooz were late dotcom era "micropayment" startups (they were more like gift certificates really) that were very well funded and failed terribly. More recently Kim Dotcom tried it with Bitcache. There are significant problems with the model.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't micropayments a thing?

#85

Post by justaguy88 »

lisper wrote: post #81

> why can't news sites just charge you $0.01 to read an article, or even half that They can. See https://blendle.com/ , though the going rate there is considerably more than 0.01. But that's a question of pricing, not of logistics. The way it works is that you pay a small-ish lump sum up front and then you draw down that balance in small increments. That is different from true micropayments where you can send small a…

Is there admin overhead that gets in the way? For example, someone disputing 400 different 1 cent charges

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't micropayments a thing?

#87

Post by addicted »

mimikatz wrote: post #10

People don't like to do transactions. It taxes our brains and makes us make decisions constantly. We like all you can eat and watch as much as you like. Paying for things sucks even if you just pay small amounts.

Thank you.

For the longest time I thought there was just something wrong with me. Rarely would you find a comment in an article about micropayments that pointed out that micropayments sound, stressful!

It causes me anxiety just having to think about having to consider making payments everytime I click on an article, for example, even if it's a tiny $0.01 amount each time.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't micropayments a thing?

#88

Post by egty »

dheera wrote: post #65
posguy wrote: post #4

Processing a credit card costs $0.02 per card, plus interchange of up to 3%. Debit processing is $0.22 cents plus 0.05%. Both of these are the baseline cost, your merchant processor often won't be able to even get these rates for their own wholesale rates. Now try and build a micropayments ecosystem ontop of this infrastructure that is very expensive to interact with (in the context of $0.01 charges). Amazon can do i…

I don't think this is inherently the issue. News sites could aggregate charges and bill you at the end of the month. I think the bigger issues is that if I see an article presented to me as shared on social media or in search results I assume it is free access. I click in, and if they ask for payment, it's a turnoff since I thought it was going to be free. Also, I don't like how credit card information can be continu…

Doesn't directly solve the root problem, but I use https://privacy.com for all of my online purchases. It lets you create multiple virtual card numbers, so every site I pay, I give a different card number. If any single site gets hacked, I can disable just that card. And each card can have a spending limit per transaction/day/month/year. Or, you can make the card a "burner" card that automatically deactivates after the first transaction.

Edit: I suppose that doesn't work as well for hotels specifically, at least in terms of giving a card for incidentals. Since it isn't a physical card, not sure if the receptionist would be keen on entering a digital card like that? But I've definitely used it to pay for rooms online.

Re: Ask HN: Why aren't micropayments a thing?

#89

Post by lisper »

justaguy88 wrote: post #85
lisper wrote: post #81

> why can't news sites just charge you $0.01 to read an article, or even half that They can. See https://blendle.com/ , though the going rate there is considerably more than 0.01. But that's a question of pricing, not of logistics. The way it works is that you pay a small-ish lump sum up front and then you draw down that balance in small increments. That is different from true micropayments where you can send small a…

Is there admin overhead that gets in the way? For example, someone disputing 400 different 1 cent charges

That too, though that's actually easier to deal with than the regulatory issues because there are technological and ToS solutions here.
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