From: nelson@crynwr.com
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 03566144298382b916cff9fc05d6cd62d3abfc56045d24a910d20488bef436c5
Message ID: <19960611184817.21676.qmail@ns.crynwr.com>
Reply To: <199606060257.TAA16018@netcom.netcom.com>
UTC Datetime: 1996-06-12 03:50:02 UTC
Raw Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 11:50:02 +0800
From: nelson@crynwr.com
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 11:50:02 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Micropayments are Crap
In-Reply-To: <199606060257.TAA16018@netcom.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <19960611184817.21676.qmail@ns.crynwr.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
Stephan Vladimir Bugaj writes:
> Setting a micropayment enabled web browser to automatically grant approval to
> payments of $.02/action may seem reasonable, but it depends on what the vendor
> has decided constitues an action. If somone charged $.02/nanosecond for
> retreiving shareware from an FTP library, and my browser was set to accept this
> as reasonable based on the fact that it was $.02/action,
You could also set a per-site limit, or a per-minute limit.
> It took the industry long enough to get PCs and workstations to the
> speeds they're at today so people could do their own work on their
> own machines to go back to waiting in a queue for time on a
> centralized system so you can have the honor of paying someone a
> lot of money to run your job. As a programmer, I can see how I
> could make a fat chunk of change by bilking people through metered
> software usage, but as a software consumer it seems like a rotten
> idea.
Oh? Would you rather pay $5,000 for some vertical piece of software,
or license its use on a $1/hour basis? Even if you used it every hour
of every workday, that's only $2,000.
> Looking at micropayments from the (economically) conservative element
> viewpoint within certain industries make them seem a lot less appealing, as
> well. Take television. If people had to purchase every TV show they
> watched, there would be a lot less TV production going on because there
> wouldn't be as much random TV watching.
Um, you *do* purchase every TV show. On the fly. 30 seconds at a
time. Of course, some cheap people try to welsh [ see my hostname
before taking offense ] on their payments by Going To The Bathroom
during their payment periods! Disgraceful, just disgraceful.
> Both micropayments and data mining require that the user give the vendor a
> level of trust which most vendors are not willing to repay with similar
> trust and customer satisfaction. Customer-users are expected to give
> vendors greater access to and control over their money and personal
> information, yet at best they can expect the same poor customer service and
> bureaucratic attitudes encountered when dealing with traditional
> transaction processing companies and at worst can expect to be swindled out
> of piles of money and/or have their
> privacy violated as a matter of course.
Hmmm... Sounds like a job for ... Super-Shameer! Profit-making
super hacker privacy protector! His mail flies through remailers with
the greatest of ease, he's invincible to flames, and and he is cute,
too!
-russ <nelson@crynwr.com> http://www.crynwr.com/~nelson
Crynwr Software | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | PGP ok
11 Grant St. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | It's no mistake to err on
Potsdam, NY 13676 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | the side of freedom.
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