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Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

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Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#231

Post by fruitworks »

danbruc wrote: post #198

I pay $19 per month to some company X, and company X distributes this money to all participating websites I visit during that month, in return I get ad-free access to all the content. And this is implemented in a way that no website learns who I am and company X does not learn which websites I visited.

Or you could cut out the middleman and use a micropayment system like GNU Taler to pay the websites directly.

That way you dont have to hope and pray that the middleman doesn't decide to track you censor, and charge increasing fees, which current middlemen like patreon currently do.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#232

Post by RadiusTech »

IMO the thread is asking the wrong question ("can micropayments work?") They can, but we need to start with first principals on what's technically necessary to move value, and what can we toss out (from both traditional/card systems and crypto). You need a linearly scalable state machine and a means of orchestrating the changes in that state between actors. Everything else (kyc, fraud protections, etc.) is secondary. Machines are likely going to be paying extreme small amounts between each other, so its highly questionable whether that state machine (a) needs to protect for fraud at .001 cents per tx and (b) whether a machine, acting on its own accord, spending .001 was contemplated during the construction of the bank secrecy act (which had the de minimis oversight of transactions at ~82k USD in 2026 values). Ensure no double spend, ensure that the machines can move value as needed, change the state. Ensure that the system scales as much as the volumes of transactions needed. And charge effectively free rates (we're at 10m tx/usd). Lots more to build here, but we're not far off. (and we're launching soon at radiustech.xyz). Come check us out.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#233

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

beeflet wrote: post #84
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #63

> We know that micropayments can work because mobile games are a thing. Paying $1.00 for an in app purchase that you thought about and decided on is not a micropayment, that's just a small payment. What makes micropayments interesting is that they can be small enough to escape notice, except in aggregate. They happen in the background, tightly coupled to the thing they're for, and not as part of an explicit purchase…

There should be a new word for the not-exactly-micro-micropayments that the author describes. I suggest "minipayments". As you, I associate the micropayment idea with truly tiny individual payments. Like paying for bandwidth by megabyte, where each payment is much less than a cent. The risk of fraud due to any individual payment not being fulfilled is low. At most you loose 0.01c of money, and the vendor loses $ of p…

I'm reminded of how tedious it is when people debate how small something has to be before it can be called a microservice... Maybe the language needs to focus on something besides size.

If you pre-pay, you're creating a debt which is destroyed when service is rendered. If you post-pay you're creating a debt when service is rendered that is destroyed when you pay. In both cases the logic of when and how you pay is decoupled from the thing you're paying for. You've got to ask how far you'll let the two accountings drift (sync monthly is a common choice).

My feeling for "micropayments" is that they happen as part of the same protocol which is providing service. There's just one accounting. Settlement schedule is determined by the nature of the service. Maybe it's page views or packets or gulps, but whatever it is it's imposed by circumstance. They're... situated payments?

And the other style is... decoupled payments?

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#234

Post by munificent »

Let's say a journalist writes an excellent article about something political of serious import. I'm fine with paying for that article to get access to it.

But, really, the article is a lot more useful to me if other people can access it too. Since everyone can vote, I want the whole populace to be informed, even poor people.

I wonder if there is a viable business model where for each article, readers can pay to unlock it not just for themselves, but for everyone. The price would obviously have to be higher since you aren't just buying it for yourself. But perhaps the sense of "I'm helping build a better-informed world and helping broadcast my values" would encourage people to pay that higher price.

Maybe you could do something cumulative and Kickstarter-like where there's a threshold for the article to be unlocked and anyone can chip in to getting it over the line. This would take advantage of human psychology that we like being part of something bigger than ourselves.

And it would hopefully have the emergent property that news that people feel is actually valuable gets spread more widely than useless junk.

You could even list the names of the sponsors of the article when it gets unlocked (if they didn't want to be anonymous). How cool would be to one of the people who helped an important story "break"?

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#235

Post by fruitworks »

RadiusTech wrote: post #232

IMO the thread is asking the wrong question ("can micropayments work?") They can, but we need to start with first principals on what's technically necessary to move value, and what can we toss out (from both traditional/card systems and crypto). You need a linearly scalable state machine and a means of orchestrating the changes in that state between actors. Everything else (kyc, fraud protections, etc.) is secondary.…

have you heard the good news about our lord and savior chaumian cash?

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#236

Post by petermcneeley »

RadiusTech wrote: post #232

IMO the thread is asking the wrong question ("can micropayments work?") They can, but we need to start with first principals on what's technically necessary to move value, and what can we toss out (from both traditional/card systems and crypto). You need a linearly scalable state machine and a means of orchestrating the changes in that state between actors. Everything else (kyc, fraud protections, etc.) is secondary.…

Sounds centralized.

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#237

Post by Jommi »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #70
Bratmon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? What does adding a slow database to the process help?

The argument I had originally heard was "the transaction costs of credit cards is so high, we need a system that works for many tiny payments. But of course, most of the cryptocurrency transaction fees are still pretty high, and a dedicated "tiny transaction" company would presumably be able to offer the same service for less cost than a distributed equivalent.

not sure where you data is from but most chains now offer sub millicent fees. https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/metrics/transaction-fee-m...

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#238

Post by [deleted] »

fruitworks wrote: post #235
RadiusTech wrote: post #232

IMO the thread is asking the wrong question ("can micropayments work?") They can, but we need to start with first principals on what's technically necessary to move value, and what can we toss out (from both traditional/card systems and crypto). You need a linearly scalable state machine and a means of orchestrating the changes in that state between actors. Everything else (kyc, fraud protections, etc.) is secondary.…

have you heard the good news about our lord and savior chaumian cash?

[deleted]

Re: Micropayments as a reality check for news sites

#240

Post by salawat »

hathawsh wrote: post #100
salawat wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't so much hate, as it's fundamentally DoA based on the financial system architecture of the United States, which creates strict liability, and a licensing requirement for digital money transmission. You do not get to opt out of that responsibility . Micropayments are therefore a pipedream that undermines all progress at making any type of AML or KYC possible, which then in turn makes fighting any type of fi…

Please help me understand better, because it feels like part of the problem has already been solved. Specifically, I've been told that the independent journalists that I watch on YouTube Premium receive a portion of my subscription fee. Is that not a form of micropayments? The system seems to work well enough for videos. Isn't there some way to adapt that kind of system to other media?

Goes like the following: Google/YouTube have a userbase to track accounts for; they go to a bank (licensed money transmitter, with OFAC/KYC/AML programs implemented). Google gets paid by people looking to advertise, and that money goes into Google's master account. Google's finance system translates views/impressions to money movements to creator accounts hosted at other banks (same deal, OFAC/KYC/AML program in place). The main thing is, every party that actually moves around money, operates in such a way that the entire transaction chain is followable. It's not point to point, it's hub and spoke. The hubs keep track of everything to keep the Osama Bin Laden's or Russian Oligarch's, or Cuban nationals out of the U.S. financial system.

"Micropayments" have always been something different. We technologists just figured there would be a way we could whip up some accounting software, or a spec, and allow people a way to store and transact without relying on a custodial holder, with all the extra regulation burden. Point is though, government and law enforcement don't want that, because with that, it becomes a great deal more difficult to follow the money, or to get away with things like mandating everyone report money movements over some amount to the tax authority; something easy to do when it's tacked on to the condition of maintaining your license to do business. Every money transmitter being well behaved and integrated with the state maximizes the risk for anyone attempting to utilize the financial system for illegal activity.

Ergo... What you think of as already solved isn't "micropayments". It's traditional finance in the U.S. What we refer to when we say Micropayments, is a way to store value, maintain accounts, and run point to point transactions "blessed" or recognized by the world et al without an intermediary.

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