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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?
. . . really does cost two cents. Paypal me at rgristroph@yahoo.com.
If you don't, stop and think and maybe you'll see why micropayments won't work.
The site could spread content sparsely but one key point I forgot to mention about this scheme is that at the end of each month you would get a popup with a list of sites and number of hits in order to confirm payment. You could redistribute the payments and lower the offending sites that you believe abuse the scheme. There would be no monetary benefit to the user reducing payment maliciously as they are only changing the distribution and they lose the same amount each month regardless. While they punish one site another benefits. It wasn't mentioned but I think it would be useful to have a suggestion box beside each site in the list, so you could explain why you did what you did. Anonymously, of course.
All payments (all companies) have a break-even point. I'm not sure if there is a way around this.
I'd like an anonymous payment system but I don't want to be interupted. I don't want to subconsciously be valuing the content and I don't want to feel ripped off with poor content.
This scheme solves most of these problems. It's not perfect but it's certainly better than most.
I think this scheme solves most problems. Hmmm...
I always thought it was some kinda IMF/World Bank/Visa conspiracy to keep micropayment down, but now I'm thinking it's the geeks, led by that Anonymous Coward guy...
What a bunch of clueless comments. Just bait, right?
Micropayments are the missing link in any sort of indie Net movement. Most of the creatives - artists, programmers - and the smaller and mid-size companies that would support 'em, got beat right down, financially and emotionally, with the dotcom fiasco. What a cheap way to kill the street competition and a new freak medium - smothering with cash works just as well as a plastic bag over the head!
Meanwhile, the ONE clear thing about the Net threat to the Establishment since '95-'96 WAS that micorpayments, done right, could provide real people the missing economic link to make the Net work for them.
Not freakin' credit card-based crap (ccard penetration outside the US is around 20%, and Americans are long since maxed out). Not even debit cards. You want a kid to be able to scrounge a fiver, take it to the 7-11, shove it in a machine, get a card like a subway card or library card or discount phone card, go home, start surfin' and be able to click and pay, dime here, nickel there, a buck for a pretty heavily compressed indie track (two bucks for a fatter file)... A little hard manga past that over 13? sign...
It's classic human consumer nature. The old candy store and what do you do with that quarter or buck. Jawbreaker, licorice, y'know... THAT'S A FAIR DISCRETIONARY BUYING SET-UP: lotsa instagratification choice, priced so you can both browse and buy.
Forget the anonymous cash aspect, take just the CASH aspect. All previous micro systems were tied to plastic - very limiting to the audience, by the mindset alone - and then to the increasingly-proven-evil debit mode (you can't really get debits to stop).
A GOOD micropayment system lets indie artists draw comics, bands and labels release tracks, every funny or fanatical freak who can type churn out fiction, reportage, lyrics, people create jewellery, put up friggin' FRACTALS for sale. No limits.
They tried that at the portals, The Globe, at least, others? Open a mini store. Or ebay. But these are different animals, CREDIT CARD secured. PayPal's hardly better.
If Cartio delivers invoice and personal check/money order fill options, THAT'S a revolution. Not only don't a ton of people have cards, or cards with anything left, people HATE them deep down. Spending cash is real.
As for usage: the click to far syndrome's spreading, slightly sneaker than in the XXX world. Been to Salon lately. Click a juicy headline. Start reading a couple paras. Suddenly: PREMIUM CONTENT, DUDE, SUB HERE. Even fuckedcompany is subscription: click too far and it's login or pay time. Papers like Variety, hardcore trades, the NY Times, etc have been doing that for a while, a teaser regular page with headlines and leads, then click a story and it's the subscriber page! Variety is a classic - try reading a juicy story.
And that's subs for $10-20-30+ a year, or even a month. Take DJ culture instead, it supports the talented quite well thanks, by NOT supporting the vast infrastructural overhead of a major label, or other big corp. Stay real, and charge reasonable, and you end up with more in your pocket than signing that big corporate contract to do whatever.
And people LIKE to pay, when they feel the payment is going direct. Buying with a card from a middleman is wack. Cracking Adobe software is cold. But sending three bucks to U-Turn records DIRECT may be questionable, but if you wanna do it, it's not less money for you, it's satisfaction!
Good micropayment is the lemonade stand. It's Tom Sawyer whitewashing the wall... It's FREE ENTERPRISE...everyone can play, and pay to play as well.
You did actually know this, right? Just teasing me?
Slashdot, which was once a bastion of FSF "information wants to be free" zealots have now revealed the strength of their convictions. When you're going broke, it's hard to justify giving stuff away.
Micropayments sound like a great idea -- for some lameass that spends thousands of dollars running a free website (with no chance of making a buck) with money taken from gullible investors. After all, it's a chance to sell your "content" instead of giving it away.
People will pay for websites -- namely porn (through subscriptions), technical information (through service contracts) and special refrence collections (medical, engineering, marketing, etc) via subscription. Very few people would ever pay for a run-of-the-mill website like Slashdot, however, because there is no compelling reason to do so.
The only reason people go to websites like this one is the large number of people who tend to congregate there. Some are pretty smart, some amusing, others obnoxious. Require payments and you will rapidly see the quantity and diversity of comments drop dramaticaly.
I am convinced that the only way that high-traffic websites where vistors stay for long periods of time or visit often (ie sites like Slashdot, Fuckedcompany and gamer sites) can survive is through brand advertising.
A combination of text and graphical ads need to be used in a manner similar to newspaper or radio spots. Get rid of those retarded banner ads that nobody ever clicks and use larger, more entertaining or catchy graphics. Make ads informative. Sell ads that create a mood rather than count clicks. Run classifieds ala Popular Mechanics magazine. Be creative.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK