People have been talking about it since the (mid) 90's, sure. But nobody has ever implemented it, at least not at any sort of scale. So we can't really say th

People have been talking about it since the (mid) 90's, sure. But nobody has ever implemented it, at least not at any sort of scale. So we can't really say that buffet style has proven "better" - it's just been available. The problem isn't making things into a financial decision, it's making them into a non-trivial financial decision. If you want $10/mo for me to access your particular walled garden, I'm going to have to think about it. And if I'm already paying for a couple other walled gardens, the answer is probably "no". But micropayments are supposed to go the other way. If you have an article that looks interesting from the headline and it costs me a nickle to press "read", I'll probably do that without thinking about it at all. The problem isn't with the idea, the problem is that nobody knows (or wants to know?) how to get the transaction costs down low enough so that the payments are actually "micro". Regulatory bodies don't help here either, as it's not a scenario they've planned around or actually care about.