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100% disgree. Consumers do not want a micropayment system built on the same idea of "shopping cart" where you have to click 100 times and enter a bunch of info

100% disgree. Consumers do not want a micropayment system built on the same idea of "shopping cart" where you have to click 100 times and enter a bunch of info to may a payment for 30 cents.. That is part of the problem, Visa and mastercard nor the banks want to make an easy friction free micropayment system because their systems are soooo terrible they could not stop the fraud, and they love the $0.30 per translation fee that makes them the bulk of their money. The systemic issues finance systems prevents anyway from making a viable micropayment system

arcticbull 4y ago
> That is part of the problem, Visa and mastercard nor the banks want to make an easy friction free micropayment system because their systems are soooo terrible they could not stop the fraud, and they love the $0.30 per translation fee that makes them the bulk of their money. What on earth gives you the idea their systems are "terrible." They seem to be quite capable and do an excellent job of all the world's commerce. In Europe card networks charge 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit, as required by regulation, so it's clearly not an efficiency thing. Heck an ACH payment costs 1/3 of a cent in volume, and that's going to instant/real-time next year with FedNow. It's been that way for 10 years in the UK, EU, AU with Faster Payments, SEPA and NPP respectively. However my point is that you just need a stored balance wallet, like Cash App, Venmo or PayPal, and we've had at least one of those for decades. Literally all a micropayment is, is increment(A) and decrement(B). There's never been a technical reason that isn't possible with pretty much any dollar amount. Do you have any reason to believe this is the case? I've seen a pile of dead bodies in the startup space over decades trying to do exactly this and nobody wants it. But every cycle people seem to convince themselves that there are no bodies, and Visa can't process payments, etc etc, and they give it a go. Only to end up in the graveyard with everyone else. What is it that all these failed startups missed? I'd love to know because intellectually I want micropayments too. I just don't think it's actually something people really want IRL.
- AnthonyMouse 4y ago
  The problem isn't the technology, it's the regulatory environment. If you're the payment processor who accepts Visa/Mastercard, the customer can do chargebacks. Now you have some scummy site that scams a million people and uses your service to accept payments. By the time the scam is uncovered, the scammer has already withdrawn the money or paid it to someone else on your service. Holding the money in escrow for long enough to prevent this will piss off legitimate sellers and some jurisdictions prohibit it. The amount per user was like a dollar but in total it's millions of dollars, so you can't just eat it. But if you don't, the users issue mass chargebacks against your service and you get banned by the credit card companies. To make it work, transactions for small amounts have to be caveat emptor, but the existing system doesn't allow that.
  - narag 4y ago
    Exactly, that's why banks need to support the system. It should be something similar to mobile prepaid refill cards.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      ACH, FedNow, etc, are all final settlement and cost almost nothing. Many have tried building it out of all the pieces that exist, it's just they didn't get any users.
      - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
        Then you have the opposite problem. Customers are shy about giving out their bank routing info if large transactions aren't reversible. You don't want it withdrawing against the full balance of your bank account. It has to be something that puts a reasonable amount of the risk on the user, rather than either none or an unlimited amount.
        arcticbull 4y ago
        That's my point though, you can just load a wallet like Cash, Venmo or PayPal - and you've always had that option. Maybe we're just talking past each other.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- airtonix 4y ago
  [dead]
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  >>What is it that all these failed startups missed? The United States..... because I can assure you the rates you indicated are no where near what we have here. Card Present transactions are 1.5% + 0.15 cents per transactions Card not present it normally 2x that, ACH takes days and is not a fraction of a cent for the normal person, etc.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    Doesn't really matter. You load up a wallet like you do today and have for decades then pay people from that. FedNow unequivocally solves this problem, and I guarantee you, it won't lead to micropayments because payments infrastructure is not now and has never been the blocker. After all it's also not something people in countries with lower interchange or instant payments want.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      People did not want an iphone until the iphone came out.. They did not want social media until someone created a platform judging everything by what people claim to want is foolish
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        I don't disagree with that at all. However, micropayments have come out before, many times, in many different iterations. It never got any traction. Again, I'd love to see a different model of monetizing the web too, I just don't have any reason to believe this is it. With iPhones, nobody wanted it until they got it, but then they couldn't get enough of it - even though it started out only doing a fraction of what people wanted to use it for. With micropayments they've had it several times and each time they said "no thank you please."
geysersam 4y ago
I 100% agree that customers have nothing against micro payments. I don't think the reason we don't typically encounter them is banks having bad systems. In my mind, the issue is trust. If I pay for something on the web, I need to trust I'll receive what was promised. How can I? Micro payments have no room for refunds. Without any system to refund bad purchases, fraudulent actors will run wild. By their nature, small transfers don't produce large value, of their small value is offset by relatively larger chance of being scammed, what's the point?
lakomen 4y ago
No one is going to pay for a random website. Even if you visit that sites daily it's a hard sell. With the inflation people don't have money laying around to spend on non-essential things. You seem to be head through wall determined that it's just matter of accessibility. It's not. Ads are ok. 1 company dominating the ad scene is what's wrong. There should be an open alternative to Adsense. Without shady dealings. A public ad marketplace that keeps 1%, which should be enough to pay for the cost of running it and maintaining it. A non-profit.

arcticbull 4y ago

> That is part of the problem, Visa and mastercard nor the banks want to make an easy friction free micropayment system because their systems are soooo terrible they could not stop the fraud, and they love the $0.30 per translation fee that makes them the bulk of their money. What on earth gives you the idea their systems are "terrible." They seem to be quite capable and do an excellent job of all the world's commerce. In Europe card networks charge 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit, as required by regulation, so it's clearly not an efficiency thing. Heck an ACH payment costs 1/3 of a cent in volume, and that's going to instant/real-time next year with FedNow. It's been that way for 10 years in the UK, EU, AU with Faster Payments, SEPA and NPP respectively. However my point is that you just need a stored balance wallet, like Cash App, Venmo or PayPal, and we've had at least one of those for decades. Literally all a micropayment is, is increment(A) and decrement(B). There's never been a technical reason that isn't possible with pretty much any dollar amount. Do you have any reason to believe this is the case? I've seen a pile of dead bodies in the startup space over decades trying to do exactly this and nobody wants it. But every cycle people seem to convince themselves that there are no bodies, and Visa can't process payments, etc etc, and they give it a go. Only to end up in the graveyard with everyone else. What is it that all these failed startups missed? I'd love to know because intellectually I want micropayments too. I just don't think it's actually something people really want IRL.

AnthonyMouse 4y ago
The problem isn't the technology, it's the regulatory environment. If you're the payment processor who accepts Visa/Mastercard, the customer can do chargebacks. Now you have some scummy site that scams a million people and uses your service to accept payments. By the time the scam is uncovered, the scammer has already withdrawn the money or paid it to someone else on your service. Holding the money in escrow for long enough to prevent this will piss off legitimate sellers and some jurisdictions prohibit it. The amount per user was like a dollar but in total it's millions of dollars, so you can't just eat it. But if you don't, the users issue mass chargebacks against your service and you get banned by the credit card companies. To make it work, transactions for small amounts have to be caveat emptor, but the existing system doesn't allow that.
- narag 4y ago
  Exactly, that's why banks need to support the system. It should be something similar to mobile prepaid refill cards.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    ACH, FedNow, etc, are all final settlement and cost almost nothing. Many have tried building it out of all the pieces that exist, it's just they didn't get any users.
    - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
      Then you have the opposite problem. Customers are shy about giving out their bank routing info if large transactions aren't reversible. You don't want it withdrawing against the full balance of your bank account. It has to be something that puts a reasonable amount of the risk on the user, rather than either none or an unlimited amount.
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        That's my point though, you can just load a wallet like Cash, Venmo or PayPal - and you've always had that option. Maybe we're just talking past each other.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
airtonix 4y ago
[dead]
phpisthebest 4y ago
>>What is it that all these failed startups missed? The United States..... because I can assure you the rates you indicated are no where near what we have here. Card Present transactions are 1.5% + 0.15 cents per transactions Card not present it normally 2x that, ACH takes days and is not a fraction of a cent for the normal person, etc.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  Doesn't really matter. You load up a wallet like you do today and have for decades then pay people from that. FedNow unequivocally solves this problem, and I guarantee you, it won't lead to micropayments because payments infrastructure is not now and has never been the blocker. After all it's also not something people in countries with lower interchange or instant payments want.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    People did not want an iphone until the iphone came out.. They did not want social media until someone created a platform judging everything by what people claim to want is foolish
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      I don't disagree with that at all. However, micropayments have come out before, many times, in many different iterations. It never got any traction. Again, I'd love to see a different model of monetizing the web too, I just don't have any reason to believe this is it. With iPhones, nobody wanted it until they got it, but then they couldn't get enough of it - even though it started out only doing a fraction of what people wanted to use it for. With micropayments they've had it several times and each time they said "no thank you please."

geysersam 4y ago

I 100% agree that customers have nothing against micro payments. I don't think the reason we don't typically encounter them is banks having bad systems. In my mind, the issue is trust. If I pay for something on the web, I need to trust I'll receive what was promised. How can I? Micro payments have no room for refunds. Without any system to refund bad purchases, fraudulent actors will run wild. By their nature, small transfers don't produce large value, of their small value is offset by relatively larger chance of being scammed, what's the point?

lakomen 4y ago

No one is going to pay for a random website. Even if you visit that sites daily it's a hard sell. With the inflation people don't have money laying around to spend on non-essential things. You seem to be head through wall determined that it's just matter of accessibility. It's not. Ads are ok. 1 company dominating the ad scene is what's wrong. There should be an open alternative to Adsense. Without shady dealings. A public ad marketplace that keeps 1%, which should be enough to pay for the cost of running it and maintaining it. A non-profit.