5 ms·

Don't think of it as asking for 1 dollar. Think like this: Say if you walk up to me irl and ask for a dollar, I'll be like, sure here's your change and open up

by shash7 9y ago

Don't think of it as asking for 1 dollar. Think like this: Say if you walk up to me irl and ask for a dollar, I'll be like, sure here's your change and open up my wallet. Online, asking for one dollar is too much mental overhead. Its not like people don't want to pay, but you need to make it easy for them to pay you. Personally, I would stick with ad revenue instead of 1 dollar payments.

Retra 9y ago
Online, asking for $1 is asking for someone's credit card info.
- mirimir 9y ago
  Right, and Mirimir has no credit cards :( I used to argue for Bitcoin, but at $6K that's crazy. However, a EZPass-like token funded with cards, cryptocurrencies, money in the mail, etc. That would be cool.
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    Being pedantic; the fluctuation is what’s crazy, if they started at $6k it’d be no problem because you’d just think in terms of thousandths of BTC (or even satoshis) instead of whole coins.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      The problem is the transaction fees needed for timely confirmation.
  - Cyphase 9y ago
    > I used to argue for Bitcoin, but at $6K that's crazy. Well, Bitcoin may not be good for micropayments, but that's not the reason; you don't have to have integer numbers of bitcoin, you can have 0.00016666 bitcoins (~$1 at $6k/BTC).
    - hossbeast 9y ago
      Lightning Network, coming soon to a blockchain near you.
      - japano1se 9y ago
        Real Soon Now™. It's pretty much vaporware at this point.
        splintercell 9y ago
        What about Raiden (for Ethereum) though, it is already on the test network.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Yes. But it's the transaction fees. Sorry to not make that clear.
  - unreal37 9y ago
    What's the transaction fee on a Bitcoin transaction these days? Minimum $1.50? With a 15- or 30-minute delay on confirmations? Not for micro- nor instant-transactions.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Yes, that was my issue. I normally set ~0.5 mBTC, but that's $3 now. That gives you an hour or less. At ~0.2 mBTC, it can take hours to confirm. However, for small payments, some accept with no confirmations, and just eat any loss.
  - mathgenius 9y ago
    This seems relevant: "Ripple, XRP and Micropayments", https://xrphodor.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/ripple-xrp-and-micropayments/ https://xrphodor.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/ripple-xrp-and-mic...
Aloha 9y ago
Online micropayments is still a woefully untouched market, it was supposed to be the wave of the future some years ago, but never went anywhere. I won't pay 10 dollars a month (each) to the NYT (LAT, WaPo, et al) for a subscription I might quite happily pay 5 to 20 cents for an article though. I can see a service that functions a lot like EZPass, you load your account with 5-10 bucks, you agree to pay by clicking a payment button on a landing page on a website, the rest is mostly automatic, require more than just a click thru for anything larger than say, 25 cents. You could even set it up so it doesn't prompt you to pay until you're more than half way thru too. Yes, It'd take some doing to build infrastructure and get content providers online, but it would eliminate a lot of the mechanics of paying for news, information, online media and other like content (as well as many of the privacy and practical concerns of ad based content payment). The big thing is to make it content agnostic, it can't be part of apple, google, facebook, whatever, it needs to be something that functions just as a payment/escrow service, not part of some other media empire - part of the utility of such a service is universality. I'd also steer clear of person to person payments, large transactions, pretty much just be a one-trick-pony (at least until you have wide penetration), and only go after small payments - all of those other markets are well served by a multitude of providers, and would serve as a distraction from the primary product.
- dalfonso 9y ago
  Saw https://blendle.com/ https://blendle.com/ posted on HN a while back. Works exactly like that.
  - photonios 9y ago
    Blende is great! I have zero problems paying for good reading material but I don’t want to pay 5 $10 subscriptions. Blendle just lets me pay per article. They are based in the Netherlands, my home country and they have deals with all major newspapers here, so I am not missing out on anything. I highly recommend you give this a shot. Note: I am not associated with Blendle in any way. Just a happy user spreading the word.
    - 9y ago
oblio 9y ago
We really need web standards for a "web wallet" and for micropayments. Something managed locally by your browser, preferably in some sort of separate sandbox. And then you'd be able set a per-site budget. However, it feels like is something the big boys don't want to handle as a standards because there's too much money at stake if they get a piece of the pay themselves, i.e. Apple Pay & co.
- test1235 9y ago
  I don't really have any interest in bitcoin and various cryptocurrencies, but that sounds perfect for this sort of thing, no?
- hafunnyusername 9y ago
  Have you read much about the Brave browser and the token system it's trying to implement? It's very similar to your proposed solution.
- dreen 9y ago
  The Web Payments API was actually created just a few months ago (or at least gained public notoriety). https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request/ https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request/ It's already in Chrome and Edge, coming to Safari: http://caniuse.com/#search=web%20payments http://caniuse.com/#search=web%20payments
SomeHacker44 9y ago
I like you. I have had an IRL theory/behavior pattern like that for some time. If you need something modest like a dollar so much that you find a return on your time to ask random people for a dollar (or $2.75 for a ride on the subway) then you need the dollar way more than i will miss it, so if I have one I often give it out. There but for the grace of god go I.

by shash7 9y ago

Retra 9y ago

Online, asking for $1 is asking for someone's credit card info.

mirimir 9y ago
Right, and Mirimir has no credit cards :( I used to argue for Bitcoin, but at $6K that's crazy. However, a EZPass-like token funded with cards, cryptocurrencies, money in the mail, etc. That would be cool.
- thisacctforreal 9y ago
  Being pedantic; the fluctuation is what’s crazy, if they started at $6k it’d be no problem because you’d just think in terms of thousandths of BTC (or even satoshis) instead of whole coins.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    The problem is the transaction fees needed for timely confirmation.
- Cyphase 9y ago
  > I used to argue for Bitcoin, but at $6K that's crazy. Well, Bitcoin may not be good for micropayments, but that's not the reason; you don't have to have integer numbers of bitcoin, you can have 0.00016666 bitcoins (~$1 at $6k/BTC).
  - hossbeast 9y ago
    Lightning Network, coming soon to a blockchain near you.
    - japano1se 9y ago
      Real Soon Now™. It's pretty much vaporware at this point.
      - splintercell 9y ago
        What about Raiden (for Ethereum) though, it is already on the test network.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Yes. But it's the transaction fees. Sorry to not make that clear.
- unreal37 9y ago
  What's the transaction fee on a Bitcoin transaction these days? Minimum $1.50? With a 15- or 30-minute delay on confirmations? Not for micro- nor instant-transactions.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Yes, that was my issue. I normally set ~0.5 mBTC, but that's $3 now. That gives you an hour or less. At ~0.2 mBTC, it can take hours to confirm. However, for small payments, some accept with no confirmations, and just eat any loss.
- mathgenius 9y ago
  This seems relevant: "Ripple, XRP and Micropayments", https://xrphodor.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/ripple-xrp-and-micropayments/ https://xrphodor.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/ripple-xrp-and-mic...

Aloha 9y ago

Online micropayments is still a woefully untouched market, it was supposed to be the wave of the future some years ago, but never went anywhere. I won't pay 10 dollars a month (each) to the NYT (LAT, WaPo, et al) for a subscription I might quite happily pay 5 to 20 cents for an article though. I can see a service that functions a lot like EZPass, you load your account with 5-10 bucks, you agree to pay by clicking a payment button on a landing page on a website, the rest is mostly automatic, require more than just a click thru for anything larger than say, 25 cents. You could even set it up so it doesn't prompt you to pay until you're more than half way thru too. Yes, It'd take some doing to build infrastructure and get content providers online, but it would eliminate a lot of the mechanics of paying for news, information, online media and other like content (as well as many of the privacy and practical concerns of ad based content payment). The big thing is to make it content agnostic, it can't be part of apple, google, facebook, whatever, it needs to be something that functions just as a payment/escrow service, not part of some other media empire - part of the utility of such a service is universality. I'd also steer clear of person to person payments, large transactions, pretty much just be a one-trick-pony (at least until you have wide penetration), and only go after small payments - all of those other markets are well served by a multitude of providers, and would serve as a distraction from the primary product.

dalfonso 9y ago
Saw https://blendle.com/ https://blendle.com/ posted on HN a while back. Works exactly like that.
- photonios 9y ago
  Blende is great! I have zero problems paying for good reading material but I don’t want to pay 5 $10 subscriptions. Blendle just lets me pay per article. They are based in the Netherlands, my home country and they have deals with all major newspapers here, so I am not missing out on anything. I highly recommend you give this a shot. Note: I am not associated with Blendle in any way. Just a happy user spreading the word.
  - 9y ago

oblio 9y ago

We really need web standards for a "web wallet" and for micropayments. Something managed locally by your browser, preferably in some sort of separate sandbox. And then you'd be able set a per-site budget. However, it feels like is something the big boys don't want to handle as a standards because there's too much money at stake if they get a piece of the pay themselves, i.e. Apple Pay & co.

test1235 9y ago
I don't really have any interest in bitcoin and various cryptocurrencies, but that sounds perfect for this sort of thing, no?
hafunnyusername 9y ago
Have you read much about the Brave browser and the token system it's trying to implement? It's very similar to your proposed solution.
dreen 9y ago
The Web Payments API was actually created just a few months ago (or at least gained public notoriety). https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request/ https://www.w3.org/TR/payment-request/ It's already in Chrome and Edge, coming to Safari: http://caniuse.com/#search=web%20payments http://caniuse.com/#search=web%20payments

SomeHacker44 9y ago

I like you. I have had an IRL theory/behavior pattern like that for some time. If you need something modest like a dollar so much that you find a return on your time to ask random people for a dollar (or $2.75 for a ride on the subway) then you need the dollar way more than i will miss it, so if I have one I often give it out. There but for the grace of god go I.