9 ms·

Because ISPs are terrible at picking winning technologies that are worth paying for. If they provided all their users with a search engine 10 years ago, it woul

by emmett 18y ago

Because ISPs are terrible at picking winning technologies that are worth paying for. If they provided all their users with a search engine 10 years ago, it wouldn't have been google, it would have been some lame competitor.

swombat 18y ago
On the other hand, perhaps they could get together to sort out a standardised payment method that would make paying for stuff online as easy as it is to purchase an iPhone app. No doubt, this would make them loads money and allow many more sites to charge money from their users.
- axod 18y ago
  Right. It just needs to be a generic payment system. Much as we had premium rate dial up ISPs for a while to access porn (Apparently). It could just be a very simple setup: 1. webapp notices you're on ISP A 2. webapp asks ISP A to bill you $3/month 3. you get an email from your ISP asking for authorization 4. you click the link and it's added to your bill
  - chadmalik 18y ago
    For your consideration, PayPal subscriptions service: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/subscr-intro-outside https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/subscr-i... It works just fine and no need to get the thousands of ISPs that exist involved, which is incredibly messy.
    - axod 18y ago
      Sure, but the user still has to have paypal setup, credit card, etc. Going the ISP route is far cleaner, since they already have a billing relationship with the customer.
  - tannerburson 18y ago
    But this falls flat once you remove the assumption that a user only accesses the internet from a single ISP. So what happens when I decide to make that purchase on my lunch break at work? Or from the free wifi at the coffee shop? There was a time that this would have worked, but I think there are too many people that aren't tied to a single physical location for their internet services. And we haven't all switched to something provided by a cell company.

by emmett 18y ago

swombat 18y ago

On the other hand, perhaps they could get together to sort out a standardised payment method that would make paying for stuff online as easy as it is to purchase an iPhone app. No doubt, this would make them loads money and allow many more sites to charge money from their users.

axod 18y ago
Right. It just needs to be a generic payment system. Much as we had premium rate dial up ISPs for a while to access porn (Apparently). It could just be a very simple setup: 1. webapp notices you're on ISP A 2. webapp asks ISP A to bill you $3/month 3. you get an email from your ISP asking for authorization 4. you click the link and it's added to your bill
- chadmalik 18y ago
  For your consideration, PayPal subscriptions service: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/subscr-intro-outside https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/xcl/rec/subscr-i... It works just fine and no need to get the thousands of ISPs that exist involved, which is incredibly messy.
  - axod 18y ago
    Sure, but the user still has to have paypal setup, credit card, etc. Going the ISP route is far cleaner, since they already have a billing relationship with the customer.
- tannerburson 18y ago
  But this falls flat once you remove the assumption that a user only accesses the internet from a single ISP. So what happens when I decide to make that purchase on my lunch break at work? Or from the free wifi at the coffee shop? There was a time that this would have worked, but I think there are too many people that aren't tied to a single physical location for their internet services. And we haven't all switched to something provided by a cell company.