I just had an epiphany. Micropayments are here. They arrived and nobody noticed.
There was never anything inherently wrong with the idea; the barrier was that dozens of fifty-cent to two-dollar payments aren’t feasible due to credit card fees (also, who wants a twelve page monthly credit card statement…). The missing key was a common payment system, where a few days worth of payments were bundled together under a lump sum with a low transaction fee for the seller. Bitpass and Peppercoins tried, and failed, because nobody wants to jump through the hoops of registering for a “payment system” to read a webcomic or an essay.
Enter the increasingly poorly-named iTunes music, movie and app store, a trojan horse that comes bundled with every iPod, iPhone and holiday gift card… now if only Steve Jobs would decide that e-books are interesting.
