OT: Tech briefing on micropayment systems was [Q] - pdf's for sale on the web?

From: ian_hammond_cooper_at_...
Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 11:17:20 -0000

Greg Stafford wrote:
> I have to agree with the conclusion in Scott McCloud's latest book:
>that the internet will be meaningful for this kind of exchange when
> I put up a few pages (0r whatever) and you can pay pennies to see
> it, a few pennnies more to download it.
>
> Please let me know when the technology for this is in place.

The W3C has been working on the issue of micropayments for some time now. [Micropayments are *usually* defined as low-cost payments for viewing content which are currently impractical due to the transaction costs exceeding the payment] You can find the W3C site's information on micropayments at:

http://www.w3.org/ECommerce/Micropayments/#About

the currently proposed standard is at:

http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-Micropayment-Markup/

Now IMO these tools will probably go mainstream in a year. The collapse of advertising revenue based content models for web sites will serve to hasten this process.

However some people believe that micropayments are never going to happen:

http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/19/micropayments.html http://www.cisp.org/imp/april_99/04_99crocker.htm

There is useful debate here

http://www.business2.com/content/magazine/indepth/1999/03/01/11654

which can be summarised as: it will work when MS ships it as part of IE.

Ian Cooper