More on Micropayments
Vin Crosby of Digital Deliverance has posted some interesting thoughts on the fledgling micropayment industry:
From Clickz article:
Information will never be too cheap to meter, just as water and electricity never became too cheap to meter. When the price of water and electricity declined decades ago, micropayment systems were built to transact purchases of those services. Those services never became absolutely free because someone had to be paid to produce them.The same is true of online content. The “free” in “free content” is a fuzzy, not absolute, adjective. It simply means the price of most online content has fallen so low that it’s nearly free; it’s well below macro amounts. Unfortunately, no open and interoperable billing systems for wired online transactions have yet been implemented (although many using wireless systems are) to transact its true price.
Microtransaction isn’t a panacea for the online content industry. Its applications may not be appropriate for many, perhaps even most, forms of online content. Yet it will exist in the future, particularly if consumers want professionally produced content.
http://www.clickz.com/experts/design/freefee/article.php/3365061
By contrast, Shirky's contention was that information will really be free, with no costs at all (neither monthly nor metered) for the consumer. I don't think that will happen. I don't think that advertising revenue alone will support professional production of online content nor millions (or eveb tens or hundreds of millions) or amateur blogs.