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BitPass: Micropayment That Seems To Work

Posted by timothy on from the mass-adoption-is-the-key dept.

Omega1045 writes "I have been following the story of BitPass for some time now. The micropayment solution provider has been featured on Slashdot before. That article focused on Scott McCloud, and his comic The Right Number. Since that story, BitPass has added a number of sites using their service. From this netizen, it looks like the idea is really taking off. Some news sources (NJ.com, SiliconValley.com) have noticed how this micropayment trend has progressed to include well known services like iTunes. I really like the idea of the artist getting a fair cut of the profits at BitPass."

3 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Not cheap, very high cost per sale. by DAldredge · · Score: 3, Informative

    "For items priced $0.01-$5.00, the transaction fee is 15%."

    15%! Are they crazy?

  2. This is not new! by DeathBunnyRanger · · Score: 3, Informative

    Company called Bee-Tokens.com has been a micropayment provider for over 3 years. they payout 80%, I don't know how bitpay can do 15% commission. chargebacks are a bitch, and credit companies want something like 5% on all non tangleable internet transactions, including server uptime etc. oh well, I have been using Bee-Tokens for a while, works for my photographs.

  3. Where's Visa? by kognate · · Score: 4, Informative

    What I don't understand is how these companies can even exist? The credit card industry (in the US anyway) has been building itself up for years and years.

    What I'm trying to ask is a two part question

    1) These services are going to have to go through the same growth problems all new financial services go through. Not all new financial servers are viable economically, and it's possible that micropayments are not viable.

    2) Why doesn't AMEX or Visa offer some sort of micropayment system? They've already got the basics for one right now: it's pervasive, easy to use, familer, and cost effective for many transactions. You just add an aggregator account for micropayments along with a dab of crypto and there you go: instant micropayments.[1]

    -jbs

    [1] the aggregator account would work like a till. Each micropayment get's tagged and signed by the payee's pubkey. At the end of the month, everybody get's paid and billed, just like they do now. The user can manage their micropayment wallet by adding/removing cash/credit (that way you can't just rob someone blind). The merchent get's the % taken out of the total of the aggregated account for processing fees. You could even use this on vending machines, cardswipe+pin and the charges get aggregated daily instead of monthly (all cryptocash emptied from this machine daily).