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Fame, Fortune and Micropayments

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the please-deposit-5-cents-for-the-next-two-pages dept.

adharma writes "Clay Shirky is at it again. Addressed previously, his new article discussess the failures of Micropayments and the joys of free content."

14 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Free, or I'll do Without! by Schezar · · Score: 4, Funny

    Honestly, I can live without most things. Sure, I listen to music, and I watch DVDs, and I play video games, but only while they're free. (I mooch from my friends) Were these friends to suddenly become unavailable, I would do without.

    Same goes for web content. I enjoy slashdot, but I'd give it up in a second before I'd spend one red cent.

    --
    GeekNights!
    Late Night Radio for Geeks!
    1. Re:Free, or I'll do Without! by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Funny

      Whose wi-fi bandwidth are you mooching to read /.?

  2. Sure I'd love to have my bank statements... by Currawong · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...500 pages long with 3 zillion transactions. *Thats* why it'd fail ;)

    --

    What is the point of the internet?
  3. Micropayments are doomed by Eponymous+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    I honestly can't think of a single web site where people would be willing to spend $0.005 to view a page.

    --
    It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
    1. Re:Micropayments are doomed by Stary · · Score: 4, Funny

      No. 1000 micropayments would be... 1 millipayment?

      --
      Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
  4. But, but, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The RIAA said nothing is really free! There are poor people starving in China because I didn't buy the Macarena song.

  5. Shirky is wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful
    phone calls, local and long distance, often are pay per unit of some sort. calling 411 too... yet, people can and do "calculate" that calls are worth making, and they pay for them.

    He's sunk his teeth into a clever sounding argument here, and he won't let go, but it doesn't make sense. It is potentially true that the web has brought the price of info down to nothing, but that doesn't mean it's because micropayments fail.

    1. Re:Shirky is wrong. by JayBlalock · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Actually, they'd be a perfect example of why micropayment systems DON'T work. The reason the telephone charging system works is that people DON'T stop and think about it. You don't have to fish a quarter out of your pocket and plunk it into your home phone. You just pick up the phone and dial - which makes the charges invisible to the user, and most likely, almost totally ignored. (how many of you, honestly, actually think about what a call is costing, until you've been talking and suddenly say "oh crap, it's been two hours! This is gonna cost me a fortune!")

      If you DID actually have to make a conscious decision to place a financial transaction every time you used the phone, long distance calls would plummet. And THAT'S what this article is arguing. For a web-based micropayment system to work, it would have to follow the TelCo model - you hand the website in question your credit card, and then you don't hear a word about the cost of the services again except once a month in the mail. And this is, for reasons too obvious to bother typing out, NOT a good idea for internet-based systems. And that's why Internet micropayments don't really work.

      --
      Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
  6. Micropayments will fail because.. by rf0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Expierence has shown that whenever people start trying to charge for content that people will find other sources which are free. We have become use to information being free and feel (wether rightly or wrongly) that it should be

    My $0.000002

    Rus

    --
    Cheap UK and US VPS
  7. How About a nice Counterpoint? by gallavad · · Score: 5, Informative

    For a view from the other-side (that of the independent content provider) check out Scott Mccloud's response to Shirky's latest essay.

  8. People pay for quality. by xanderwilson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The author uses two pretty low-quality examples. Just as people are loathe to pay $20 shareware for software worth about $5, the two examples (.10 for PowerPoint slides) don't sound worth it either. When valuable content comes priced at or below their value--that's when Micropayments have a chance to succeed. Not when people continue to follow the paradigm of overcharging customers, just on a smaller scale now.

    I thought McCloud's comic was well worth the 25 cents and BitPass was pretty easy to use. I might experiment with it on a future project of my own--alongside free content.

    I don't remember exactly what separates a "micropayment" from a "small payment," but consider the apparent success of iTunes. I've talked to a lot of people who are amazed at how easy it is to click and buy--at $.99 even--and they're more willing to spend than they thought they were. Can people find these same songs for free? Probably. But they're paying for how much more convenient the paid service is to them than the free version.

    I'd love to see how well or how poorly McCloud has done with his comic. Here's someone who has demonstrated his value to the consumer in the past with both free and priced content. I think finding out if people were willing to follow HIM from free to .25 will be more telling than this article.

  9. Free Rider Problem by David+Hume · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Free, or I'll do Without!

    Honestly, I can live without most things. Sure, I listen to music, and I watch DVDs, and I play video games, but only while they're free. (I mooch from my friends) Were these friends to suddenly become unavailable, I would do without.

    Same goes for web content. I enjoy slashdot, but I'd give it up in a second before I'd spend one red cent.


    If with respect to DVDs, CDs and video games everyone adopted your attitude, you would have to do without them because they would not be available.

    This is the classic free rider problem (see also Wikipedia).

    --
    Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
  10. The forgotten segment by Perianwyr+Stormcrow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I can buy pre-paid BitPass cards without a credit card, with a similar level of convenience, then we have a winner.

    Either that, or anything targeted at teenagers will never be able to charge.

    --

    What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey

  11. Re:Getting what you pay for by Pharmboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    An observant person (don't seem to be a lot around here) will have noticed that one of the few pay-for-access web sites that actually have customers is the one owned by the Wall Street Journal.

    Rush Limbaugh's 24/7 program is similar in that you pay around $45 a year ($75 for two years) for both the monthly newsletter and premium web access combined. $10 less for no newsletter.

    Been a member for 2 years now, and I find it's worth it, even tho I only hit it 2 or 3 times a month. Also give access to higher bandwidth audio stream of the live show, which is nice in a steel building with no reception. Plus tons of good links, video feeds, access to tons of audio and video links, and archived shows. When you listen to the archives, there are NO commercials, and when you listen live online, you get bumper music instead of commercials when you are a paying member.

    My opinion is that the Rush program works because it is not "all things for all people" but rather a very focused delivery system for specific content, conservative politics.

    Not everyone is into it, but they have a ton of members and provide exceptional content for those who like it. If you like the Rush show (I do) it provides very nice access with no commercials. It is a pretty good model for others.

    --
    Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!