Re: The Future of Micro Payment Systems
Posted on October 10, 2005 at 09:25 PM by sj695
After reading both articles by Clay Shirky and Scott McCloud, I would side with Clay on the topic of the future of micropayment systems. I’m not siding in this direction because Clay is a professor here at ITP, but because I agree with him on many points. As the future of the web is much clearer today than it was in 2003, especially with coming of the Web 2.0 era, it is obvious tomorrow’s web, I mean today’s web, is one where it’s core relies on the user and the user’s ability to exchange and connect with content of the internet. Although I side with Clay on this argument, especially when it comes to informational based content like news, essays and any other form of written word, I do believe there is a little hope for Scott’s bitpass.
That hope relies on the type of content that will be available through the micropayment systems. Content like articles, essays and etc will not do well, but content like music, videos and maybe software have some chance for success. But at the same time those types of content would do well if they are not of the recurring type, anything that is episode based or recurring. I believe consumers of that type of content would prefer a subscription-based model; they would feel the cost of the transaction each time they would view the latest content or episode.
The bitpass model should also consider some type of flex pricing that allows the user to pay more if they feel like or just the base price, since most of it’s sellers are small and independent. I think this may eliminate the mental cost of the transaction a little. It seems a person is more likely to give than is to purchase when it comes to the web, this system would be more along the lines of micropayment extension of PayPal.
Clay Shirky's Fame versus Fortune and Scout McCloud's response