Slashdot Mirror
Is Anything Wrong w/ the Cartio Micropayment System?
ballpeen asks: "Obviously it's not the lack of technology that's been holding up a decent micropayment system for years. But a few months back, I tried out the dummy account demo for the new Cartio set-up, and it seems fine. It's based out of the Netherlands, but fully international. Offers credit card, debit, personal check or cash fills. The s/w downloaded in a couple minutes (400K?), installed no problem on Win98, and seemed to work fine. It's made to handle online and offline purchases in the one-cent to 10 bucks range. Has anyone else checked this out? What's the hold-up?" Of course, this is currently Win32 only (a Mac version looks to be in the works). But the system seems sound enough. Might Cartio be the first to do micropayments right?
All right, I'm going nuts here. But I can't believe these consistently lame answers.
This has nothing to do with Yahoo! and MSNBC, it's about individuals, the little guys, the indie labels, the tattoo artists, the lone filmmakers. And the kids with computers who can crank out a better 90 minute fx flick than hollywood, for a fraction of the cost, and just need to get paid.
1. Everyone does not have a credit card. US is, I think 60% penetration? World, 20%. Take out the maxed out, the non-users, the completely in another market, it's not many people. And who's the most likely audience for indie gear: sure some Blue Card yuppy hackers and graphic artists, but a lot more people with cash, no cards.
2. I ran an indie music site that got up to nearly a million page views a month, 20,000+ unique visits a week. On a $30 account - they lived up to their unlimited bandwidth claim - my time, a few other volunteers, and a ton of site posting activity. One or two columns, or charts, could easily have pulled in 10cents a view, racked up 1,000 views a day, $100, $700 a week. For a start, that pays my bills. Rent too. Hey, food also. Sure the big guys rack up the pennies like they always do - but now others can too.
3. If you looked, the free setup is 20% flat charge. Then 15% and 10% if you invest one time in programs at $8K and %28K. So my $700 is $560 pretax. Cost me nothing... 20% is relative - just fine if you get what you need, versus nothing.
I'll go away now.