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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?

#171

Post by BrandoElFollito »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #159
paxys wrote: post #114

People are mentioning technical & payment processing hurdles, but those are all easy to figure out. Look at the gaming industry, mobile app stores, iTunes, online gambling, toll booths, tipping on various online platforms. Micropayments are most definitely already a thing, and have been for a while. A better version of your question is – why do newspapers charge for a monthly subscription instead of a per-article fee…

In Germany there are sites like "Stifung Warentest" (a mostly neutral product testing organization) that charge one-time fees of 5-10 € for accessing test reports for specific product categories, e.g. mattresses. I bought some of these in the past, they also offer regular subscriptions but since most people are only intermittently interested in specific product tests I don't think they sell a lot of those. So it can…

We have something similar in France with a magazine (paper and online) that has the same business model ("60 millions de consommateurs").

Their independence/neutrality is the key differentiator.

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

#173

Post by Nullabillity »

floatingatoll wrote: post #134
Nullabillity wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam only requires the Steam Wallet for microtransactions. Games and DLC are usually bought "directly". Refunds go to the original payment method, unless you explicitly request that it should go to the wallet. > with the singular exception of Apple who does not compel all purchases through an intermediate currency balance. Google Play doesn't have one either, FWIW.

Oh! That's news. Thanks for the heads up, I didn't know that about Steam.

Pretty sure that's been the case since they started doing refunds.

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

#174

Post by FerretFred »

> why can't news sites just charge you $0.01

THIS! And having seen the standard of journalism and the amount of ads they fill the content with, I'm rarely, if ever going to waste $5 a month for a subscription. Often, I see an interesting article which hides behind a paywall, and I'd pay to read it, if a micropayment system was in operation.

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

#175

Post by Jommi »

paraselene_ wrote: post #133
CryptoGhost wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Take Youtube as an example. A ton of mental overhead: videos padded for time, clickbait titles and thumbnails, in video promotions, reminder to check their patreon, reminder to like and subscribe, interruptions for Google ads, etc, . All this adds up and makes you question if the time waste was worth the chance at maybe getting to view some decent content. A system where you are throwing a penny at somebo…

Not if you use SponsorBlock. Been using it for months, it greatly improves the youtube experience.

And greatly removes the way these creators can actually pay for their lifestyle of creating. Good job!

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

#176

Post by telesilla »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #44
acjacobson wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There have been several projects that did exactly that. They just haven't really taken off. Like Blendle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendle I see they're moving to a subscription model now too in an attempt to make it more attractive.

I have Blendle along with subscribing to a number of independent outlets, and really appreciate it. I don't want to buy a sub for all the newspapers I might read and it saves a hell of lot of time worrying about whether I've already read too many articles for the month. It's a few cents per read, and as I don't have all day to browse the papers anyway it is very good value. I hope they, or someone like them, really succeed in the long-term. It feels good to be giving money to journalists.

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

#177

Post by jitendrac »

If I have an option to pay every article, post, tutorial I read automatically pay $0.01, I will willingly do so. But in real world all website want their own payment processing independence, on top of that payment processors charges some minimum fixed 20-30 cents per transaction + 2-3% of transaction and that is crazy. I will not pay 30 cents for a brief article written in 20 minutes, also not pay to a website that I am going to visit once in a lifetime. the only solution I can think is a crypto wallet based browser add-on which takes deposit of $xx from me every month and distribute the 1 cent per article I read to original author every once in a while with a pool of thousands of transactions ultimately making processing fees negligible per transaction.

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

#178

Post by floatingatoll »

Nullabillity wrote: post #173
floatingatoll wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh! That's news. Thanks for the heads up, I didn't know that about Steam.

Pretty sure that's been the case since they started doing refunds.

My personal experience may have given me an incorrect view on it due to unusual reasons. I appreciate the correction all the same.

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

#179

Post by ZeroSync »

kylebenzle wrote: post #119
RustyRussell wrote: post #76

As sometime who has worked full time on this for over 5 years now, I have found a few aspects of your answer: The technical challenges of doing it with credit cards are overwhelming (in CC parlance, a "microtransaction" is anything under $10) due to fee structure. You can simplify this by using a different payment rail (in my case, Lightning over Bitcoin), but now you have a different problem: nobody has Bitcoin. You…

Lightning over Bitcoin? This can't be serious, can it? LN is vaporware from day one. It serves no purpose because it is essentially centralizing a decentralized service. And when it still cost $5-10 to send BTC to a LN node, you are no better off than credit card fees. Hilariously BTC had this problem solved from day one, then Blockstream hijacked the GitHub repo, kicked out all the original devs and artificially lim…

Bitcoin cash? You sound clownish. Wake up and stop drinking the kool-aid buddy. Nobody goes near that scam fest, sorry.

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

#180

Post by willmadden »

herbst wrote: post #165
willmadden wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can simplify this by using a different payment rail (in my case, Lightning over Bitcoin), but now you have a different problem: nobody has Bitcoin. The problem is that Lightning essentially is a subscription service. The user has to lock much more Bitcoin in a channel in order use Lightning for micro transactions, which defeats the purpose. The minimum fee to get a Bitcoin transaction confirmed in a reasonable a…

I realize the issue is even less people having it. But there are chains like Tron that have the fee issue basically solved.

That's a non-sequitur. The "fee issue" was caused by a group of shady developers and hacks that hijacked the Bitcoin repository and rate limited it. When the community protested, they were censored and banned from the online forums.
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