Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We must do something, this is something, therefore we must do it" "Micropayments are desperately needed" - this is true. "I don't see modern payment networks doing anything to get there" - this is also true. Neither of those imply we must solve this problem with Bitcoin, and neither of them contradict OP's statement. Bitcoin is slow, energy inefficient, and a shit transaction currency because of philosophies built i…
> "Micropayments are desperately needed" - this is true. Probably not. They've been proposed all the way back to Chaum's DigiCash, but no micropayment system has ever really taken off. Not just crypto schemes. Schemes to put micropayments on your cellular phone bill were a flop. Even 976 numbers never got traction outside of dial-a-porn and have mostly died out. All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people…
Yes, they are. The current dominant payment models are (1) individual patronage (which doesn't scale, and disproportionately concentrates rewards/wealthy to the very most popular creators) and (2) ads (which are incredibly problematic in almost every way imaginable).
> They've been proposed all the way back to Chaum's DigiCash, but no micropayment system has ever really taken off.
"Nobody's gotten it to work yet, therefore it's a bad idea" is a basic fallacy that has been disproven many times throughout history, especially in the past few decades, where there were many ideas (e.g. VR, machine learning, high-level programming languages) attempted in the past at points when the technology and/or market culture simply weren't right yet, that were later validated as good ideas.
> All the enthusiasm for micropayments comes from people who want to collect them. Not from consumers wanting to send them.
Yes, because free-with-ads and subscription-based services are the two dominant payment models. Both are incredibly problematic (ads come with huge privacy and coercion issues, subscription services remove media ownership and don't proportionately reward creators for their work), but because they're already established, consumers don't feel a need for something else.
This argument is like saying "All the enthusiasm for eating healthily comes from doctors who want to pitch diets to people. Not from individuals wanting to eat healthily."
Paying for individual pieces of content is clearly superior to having your attention and personal information sold to advertisers, but because ad-supported services have a price tag of zero, there's no transparency as to what data is collected and sold, and the ad-supported model is popular and familiar, consumers will choose that over a new unproven system.
That does not mean that micropayments are worse. The principled arguments for micropayments are far stronger than that of either ads or subscription services.