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I'm hearing about this for so long, yet never seen it anywhere. When financebros talk about micro-anything, they usually mean something like few hundred or thou

I'm hearing about this for so long, yet never seen it anywhere. When financebros talk about micro-anything, they usually mean something like few hundred or thousand dollars. For me, micro means cents or even less.

barrysteve 3y ago
There was a comment on HN a year or mor ago, someone was making good money selling cheap and cheerful $1 (ish) games on Steam.. Steam of course banned micropayments that low.
- Ekaros 3y ago
  https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/3700310527377680732 https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/d... Minimum normal price is 0.99 and minimum transaction price is 0.49. All things considered they are reasonable limits as those might be actual singular payment transactions.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
I've also wondered why no one ever tried to make a true "penny arcade". The problem is that it cost companies some money to process transactions, and credit card companies hate tiny transactions to begin with. This effectively means that it becomes hard to charge less than a dollar, and nearly impossible to charge less than $0.50. The only true way around this is a token model. You make a large payment, but you use it for proprietary tokens that you can then "shop" around with for goods that you normally couldn't pay $0.50 for otherwise. But it's not a very popular model. I imagine the issue comes from the fact that many consumers will simply buy 1-2 key things and then never come back. So in comes a subscription model, where they can use those 1-2 key things to cover the cost of the other 90 niche items. It may even create a new cult following out of some niche if there's no additional resistance to consuming a niche item.
- mrkramer 3y ago
  My reasoning is that power users prefer subscription because they use the service more often or matter a fact very often. Casual users would perhaps prefer micropayments so for example you would rather pay a few bucks to watch one movie that interests you than go for $15 Netflix subscription just to watch that one movie. Another interesting category is books; some publishers allow you to purchase certain chapters that interest you but the price of those chapters is obnoxious[0]. 30 euros for one chapter?! I think the content producers and publishers need to embrace micropayments first and then demand will follow. >The only true way around this is a token model. You make a large payment, but you use it for proprietary tokens that you can then "shop" around with for goods that you normally couldn't pay $0.50 for otherwise. I had the same idea; for example you would deposit $5 and then use it for micropayments like 1, 5 or 50 cents. Like somebody already mentioned, Steam does it already in a sense that you can for example buy skins for 50 cents. Btw one of the ideas of Satoshi's Bitcoin was micropayments where you could pay for instance one thousand of a cent for some service. So called "cryptocoins" can very much be the future of payments and micropayments in particular. >I imagine the issue comes from the fact that many consumers will simply buy 1-2 key things and then never come back. That's why companies like subscriptions, they provide them with forward recurring revenue. [0] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403932754_1 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403932754_1

barrysteve 3y ago

There was a comment on HN a year or mor ago, someone was making good money selling cheap and cheerful $1 (ish) games on Steam.. Steam of course banned micropayments that low.

Ekaros 3y ago
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/3700310527377680732 https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/d... Minimum normal price is 0.99 and minimum transaction price is 0.49. All things considered they are reasonable limits as those might be actual singular payment transactions.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

I've also wondered why no one ever tried to make a true "penny arcade". The problem is that it cost companies some money to process transactions, and credit card companies hate tiny transactions to begin with. This effectively means that it becomes hard to charge less than a dollar, and nearly impossible to charge less than $0.50. The only true way around this is a token model. You make a large payment, but you use it for proprietary tokens that you can then "shop" around with for goods that you normally couldn't pay $0.50 for otherwise. But it's not a very popular model. I imagine the issue comes from the fact that many consumers will simply buy 1-2 key things and then never come back. So in comes a subscription model, where they can use those 1-2 key things to cover the cost of the other 90 niche items. It may even create a new cult following out of some niche if there's no additional resistance to consuming a niche item.

mrkramer 3y ago
My reasoning is that power users prefer subscription because they use the service more often or matter a fact very often. Casual users would perhaps prefer micropayments so for example you would rather pay a few bucks to watch one movie that interests you than go for $15 Netflix subscription just to watch that one movie. Another interesting category is books; some publishers allow you to purchase certain chapters that interest you but the price of those chapters is obnoxious[0]. 30 euros for one chapter?! I think the content producers and publishers need to embrace micropayments first and then demand will follow. >The only true way around this is a token model. You make a large payment, but you use it for proprietary tokens that you can then "shop" around with for goods that you normally couldn't pay $0.50 for otherwise. I had the same idea; for example you would deposit $5 and then use it for micropayments like 1, 5 or 50 cents. Like somebody already mentioned, Steam does it already in a sense that you can for example buy skins for 50 cents. Btw one of the ideas of Satoshi's Bitcoin was micropayments where you could pay for instance one thousand of a cent for some service. So called "cryptocoins" can very much be the future of payments and micropayments in particular. >I imagine the issue comes from the fact that many consumers will simply buy 1-2 key things and then never come back. That's why companies like subscriptions, they provide them with forward recurring revenue. [0] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403932754_1 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781403932754_1