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I view this as a major failing of our payments infrastructure. I have no way to send a few cents to a business digitally.

• JohnFen 7y ago
  What I find odd about this is that there does exist at least one perfectly fine micropayment system. It's running in my laundromat (the company is Heartland Micropayments), where I can use my credit/debit or laundry payment card. When I wash and dry three loads of laundry, I don't get 6 charges on my card. I get one. It seems like it wouldn't be a huge amount of work to bring this to the internet, particularly since it's using the internet for its communication in the first place.
  • chc 7y ago
    Batching small payments is not the hard part of creating a payment system that can support the entire Web. Harder parts include problems like UX (e.g. balancing the need to make a system people will want to use against the danger of users unknowingly running up a huge bill), getting buy-in from websites (why should they use your service in particular?), and just convincing people to sign up for yet another godforsaken account on the Internet.
    • JohnFen 7y ago
      Yes, I understand. I just find it odd that nobody has done it yet, particularly as the non-web infrastructure and business logic already exists.
      • chc 7y ago
        Various services like that have come about (for example, LaterPay). They just didn't catch on because, again, micropayments are not the hard part.
    • TACIXAT 7y ago
      Not to mention all the money service business non-sense which makes it nigh unapproachable unless you're a bank.