From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 11:43:04 +0800
To: "Stephan Vladimir Bugaj" <stephan@studioarchetype.com>
Subject: Re: Micropayments are Crap
In-Reply-To: <v03006f00adeae1c27e39@[204.162.75.169]>
Message-ID: <199606171945.MAA12205@netcom4.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Mr. Bugaj makes some very good points about micropayments
being a current capitalist fad etc, and I think his idea
that venture capitalists do not necessarily exactly represent
the interests of the population is interesting.
his general message seems to be "lets look before we leap".

I tend to agree that abuses of micropayments will be possible
and one of the difficult hurdles for the system to overcome.
I don't know how pathological or difficult they will be. 
intuitively it seems like they will be less severe than
existing problems that have largely already been solved
by bank technologies. however it is quite possible (perhaps
even probable) that entirely new problems are going to
arise with the introduction of micropaymens.

so I wonder if people have ideas on some of the key problems
that might arise with micropayments. it would be very useful
to try to "head them off at the pass" and imagine what the
implications of micropayments are going to be.

here are two main problems I see right off the bat:

1. taxation. I suspect once the digital economy begins to 
get off the ground, the government is going to want to tax
it, and in a way that is enforced technologically. I wouldn't
be surprised if there are future proposals for "clipper like"
technology that integrates taxation mechanisms right into
the billing networks, mandatorily-- i.e. it is not up to the
person to report it; they simply can't escape the reporting. 

 furthermore when people
begin to realize that "anyone" can effectively "create" cash,
I expect to witness a lot of legislative panic ala today's
pornography or whatever. (digital pornography is going to be extremely
trivial in social implications compared to the ramifications of
digital cash).

the taxation problem is a part of a much larger problem: that
of good government. could it be that microcurrency will affect
our government? I think so. cyberspace has already begun to
have discernable and palpable effects on government. and it
is only beginning.  so what I would like to say is that if we
solved the problem of having a good government, issues like
taxation would take care of themselves.

2. copyrights. the issue of copyrights is not even resolved today.
when serious cash starts to be associated with cyberspace you
are going to see a lot of incredibly agitated people, especially
lawyers. I imagine systems will evolve that are similar to 
a technology that has evolved by which radio stations pay music
companies whenever they play artists songs. (if any cpunks could
elaborate on this system, I think it is an excellent preliminary
example of how a microcurrency-like system would interact with
a copyright situation).  I think similar standards are going to
be developed by which web page designers build up their pages,
and a distribution mechanism of charges will be intrinsic. 
the author will get their desired "cut" of every transaction,
the site editor will get some kind of cut, etc.   

this really revolutionizes the idea of a magazine or editor. 
suddenly anyone on the net can become an editor or writer,
and become as financially successful as the market will support.
the "scrape off" due to enormous bureacracies (media conglomerates)
is going to vanish and be funneled into a renaissance of artistry
I suspect.