Re:Three constraints that are holding the web back
by asciilifeform on Wednesday April 08, 2009 @11:16AM
(#552802)
>I am in favor of absolutely anything that makes it easier for macro-payments to go through
Be careful what you wish for. Do you want to have to think before clicking, lest a 3000-word article cost you the day's lunch money? I personally am very glad that there is no good, lightweight, user-friendly architecture for micropayments. I hope it stays that way.
I agree, micropayments are fundamentally flawed. The reasons have been the same since Clay Shirky said so in 2000: users hate them.
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/19/micropayments.ht...
However, I am in favor of absolutely anything that makes it easier for macro-payments to go through. The Apps Store cited is one way to accomplish macropayments with just a click or two, but I am skeptical that that works for the general case.
Honestly I think we're probably going to just get iterative improvements on Paypal at this point -- that is a great leap from the status quo circa 2000 but it leaves me feeling a little annoyed in 2009. There's still a 10x improvement out there... except it would have to decouple e-commerce from credit cards and have instant penetration higher than Paypal. Tough order there.