3 ms·

Micropayments never work. It's too much friction for the median user to decide if they want to spend a quarter on an article. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/lib

by rcpt 1mo ago

Micropayments never work. It's too much friction for the median user to decide if they want to spend a quarter on an article. https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/micropayments-and-mental-transaction-costs/ https://nakamotoinstitute.org/library/micropayments-and-ment...

m463 1mo ago
Used to be you would trade a yak or a horse for something. Then you could trade little pieces of metal. In the future, why not something smaller? I mean, people are trading virtual things (like an app). Why not something small for something as small as a website view?
- rcpt 1mo ago
  Look at the paper. There's a floor to mental work. Even if it's a nickel, having to make that decision is enough friction to kill the whole deal
  - m463 1mo ago
    But we charge for tokens, and sites like youtube and spotify reward in collected chunks.
zhivota 1mo ago
I'd argue it's still a product issue, one that will eventually be solved. The reason a payment is too much friction today is because it's surrounded by a raft of cruft: is there an extra "processing fee", am I signing up for a recurring charge and didn't realize it, I have to enter my card details and address, or I have to log in to some system, I have to OTP with my bank, etc. It hasn't been solved yet, but someone will solve it to the point that it's a single swipe to buy an article for 25c, and it'll work. I would argue the NYT is in the best position to do so, but they are addicted to their scummy business practices where it's hard to cancel, you pay "$2/mo introductory rate" that suddenly escalates to $40/mo, and so on. I could see Substack taking a crack at it also.