From: Einar Stefferud <Stef@nma.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 11:47:56 +0800
Subject: Re: Micropayments: myth?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.3.91.960610213300.11005B-100000@fully.organic.com>
Message-ID: <13618.835214087@odin.nma.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Your analogy breaks because you do not provide for the corresponding
of connections between the gas tank and the dashboard indicator for
the case of buying small items from many different vendors.

I can see each vendor site giving you a "gas gauge" indicator, either
showing how much you have cumulatively charged at a given site, or how
much is left on your prepaid site account (these are the same thing in
terms of adding up charges), but I fail to see how your analog applies
outside the local control of each vendor site.

In short, you have again shown that microcharging systems are limited
to local accumulations.  Your gas tank example is limited to the car
you are driving, and does not tell you anything about anything else.

Unfortunately, you appear to be applying the idea to a collection of
vendors which you wish to visit, which means that someone somewhere
must be getting the disparate charges from different vendors to update
your singular gas gauge.

Drawing analogies is great fun, but all analogies break at some point
in their life, because they abstract away enough detail to paint a
simplified picture.  Sometime this leads to complete failure to map as
intended.

Best...\Stef

>From Brian Behlendorf's message Mon, 10 Jun 1996 21:49:05 -0700 (PDT):
}
[snip]....
}
}Now, let's consider bridging this metaphor into the micropayments world.  
}Imagine that surfing the web is like driving a car - you'll dribble out 
}small amounts of money over a period of time, but as long as you watch 
}your speedometer (the rate at which you spend money) and the fuel tank 
}levels (the amount of coinage in your wallet), you are in control of your 
}spending rates.  Whether you approve every micropayment explicitly, or 
}you set a minimum level below which requests for payments are automagically 
}granted, is up to you.  Me, I'd probably be alright with just about any 
}site I go to asking for less than $.02 for any action I take.  Anything 
}above that, I want to be explicitly asked.  My user interface has a gas 
}gauge and a speedometer in the upper-right-hand corner instead of a 
}throbbing "N".  When my levels are low, I go visit my bank and "refill" 
}my wallet.  Voila!
}
}The billing happens, as others have previously noted, entirely at the 
}client side.  There's no reason the wallet or web browser can't keep a 
}log of expenditures, and there's no chance for spoofery at that point 
}(the wallet knows where it sent money).  
}
}And yes, I am presuming a system involving transfers of digitally signed 
}tokens of some sort.  I don't think this is a mistaken presumption.  
}
}	Brian
}
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}