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Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1996-06-08 - Re: Micropayments: myth?

Header Data

From: Einar Stefferud <Stef=buyinfo@nma.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: d10c0bbe376d858764f8acb07642caa414a8f9d96b749d0dd46aa7f8dc3bfdcd
Message ID: <27817.834218804@odin.nma.com>
Reply To: <199606072058.NAA05291@netcom3.netcom.com>
UTC Datetime: 1996-06-08 15:58:03 UTC
Raw Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 23:58:03 +0800

Raw message

From: Einar Stefferud <Stef=buyinfo@nma.com>
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 23:58:03 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Micropayments: myth?
In-Reply-To: <199606072058.NAA05291@netcom3.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <27817.834218804@odin.nma.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Yo are assuming away facts that some of us cannot assume away.

>From your message Fri, 07 Jun 96 13:58:53 -0700:
}
}>
}>> the wallet action will always
}>> be tied with some other action. the user picks up the phone to dial
}>> somewhere, and it says, "that will be .3c-- will you pay"? he says
}>> yes. 
}>
}> How will you know the cost is .3c a priori?
}>What's to stop me from saying yes to the .3c and staying on the line
}>forever?
}
}I don't understand why this micropayment thing is being thought
}so complicated.
}
}I am making some simple assumptions that seem to not be obviously
}apparent, apparently.
}

Specifically, you assume that no one will want to audit and check up
on micro-charges that accumulate nto bills.  Like my phone bill with 5
pages of 2-5 cent toll calls.  I really don't want to analyze all
that, but I also don't trust the phone company to always present me
with an accurate bill. 

So, I would rather deal with the accumulation schem by paying a fixed
fee for a service that does not send me all that deatil that I cannot
use or analyze.  To use it I would have to keep a log, with the times
of all calls to compare.

Now, you want to move this kind of charging to some service I do not
trust as much as I trust the phone company, and send me a bill for an
accumulation of charges without supporting detail.  Thsi might be OK
for small amounts, but what about a large company where these
undocumented microcharges add up to say, $200,000/year?

How do we know that someone is not simply padding the bill?  All we
need is for the billing system to slip in an occasional bogus charge
the looks for all the world like any other microcharge.

You know, like the bank employee case where someone accumulates the
round-up transaction adjustments to an account and ships the money to
Switzerland.

This is what you are omitting in your assumptions...
I just don't believe the world is going to be so trusting....\Stef

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