rebirth of micropayments?

has anyone found a way to make them work?

[amznVibe]

I've started to see little bursts of conversation elsewhere on the web again about micropayments, but searching around here finds barely any discussion?

Micropayments seem to be debated every other year or so as web technology gets more rebust and visitors get a little more savvy (and ad weary). The huge question is has anyone around here found a way to make them work yet? I'd love to hear from optimistic webmasters because its easy to fall prey to the knee-jerk negitivity surrounding the subject.

Nielsen talked about this back in 1998
[useit.com...]
and got a slew of negitive comments

But I have found some positive talk about this [cartio.com...]
and then I came across this person who is trying to "roll their own"
[icarusindie.com...]

So any success stories around here? -aV-

[edited by: amznVibe at 11:00 am (utc) on Jan. 7, 2003]

[unknownsoldier]

From a UK perspective I have seen a few companies appear offering micropayment systems:

e.g.

[ymogen.net...]

and

[newgenpay.com...]

Also heard on the grapevine that BT's
[btclickandbuy.com...] is a form of micropayment.

There are sites out there now that are incorporating what appear to be successful micropayment systems. Wish I could point to the examples now...too early in the day..

Seams to be paving the way forward for a lot of sites who are now able to open up and exploit possible revenue streams.

[amznVibe]

I would think it all comes down to how its presented to the consumer. When some people hear "micropayments" they are turned off, envisioning the site as saying "hey we are gonna charge you for every little thing".

But if you say somehow, "look, just deposit $20, and you get to choose whatever you want, over however long you want, we only charge you for what you use, not what you don't". As long as people can see value, they might pay for it in pennies out of their "deposit" willingly.

Long distance phone service has almost always been pay by the minute for a small amount of pennies (which is a micropayment, no?) LD monthly subscription plans are relatively new and from what little I know I don't think they are doing that great?

Then again we are all spoiled on the internet. Would you pay a few pennies to read message threads on Webmasterword? Slashdot? To download mp3s? What if Google charged a penny a search and you deposited like $10 every few months? It's easy to believe that people would switch to whatever else is "free" instead regardless of reduced quality/service. Sigh.
Someone show me some positive examples that work?

[amznVibe]

Wasn't there something big that just happened in Norway?
Oh yeah, wasn't the kid who cracked the DVD code found innocent over there?

Well Norway might have the first open minded consumers to accept micropayments.
[theregister.co.uk...]
This happened late 2002 so we should have some real world answers soon?

In the next fortnight or so, Internet content providers in Norway are preparing something of an experiment that could bring new fortune to their struggling online brands. An alliance of over 80 media companies is attempting to push the Internet users of Norway into micropayments in exchange for the provision of content. The alliance covers roughly 80% of companies in Norway providing media and entertainment content online.

[amznVibe]

I guess this topic is just going to die. :-(
Post or sticky mail me anyone if you have good examples
of smaller sites using micropayments, especially if its a "roll-your-own"
setup and they are not using 3rd party software... thanks! -aV-

[john316]

It's a wonderful concept, but hard to put into play.

The issue has more to do with the cost to admin the system, it could easily cost 3 pennies to collect 2.

A lot of us have "penny jars" at home, why?...it costs too much to spend the things.