Ask HN: Why are web microtransactions not yet ubiquitous?

4 points by ivoras 3 years ago | 7 comments

Early HTTP even provided bits and pieces of a mechanism to pay for content, and browser extensions with integrated with crypto wallets have shown that it's feasible to do reasonable secure transactions within those browsers.

So, why can't I pay a dollar or two to read an interesting article, or pay something to the author of a cool github repo? Or on the other side, why can't I as an author just place <payme iban="xxx" placeholder="1 USD">Buy me a banana</payme> and be done with it?

Did the role get taken over by easy-to-use payment gateways like Stripe? Do card processors still take a fee too large for the idea to be viable?

Ekaros 3 years ago |

I think big thing is that microtransactions would have to in range of deci or centi or milli transactions. That is from 10s of cents to fractions of cents. Actually getting sufficient volume of these and cuts from these is not simple.

Just any sort of refund or chargeback process might wipe out hundreds if not thousands of transactions value. Too little value to be sensible.

jfengel 3 years ago |

I don't think people would pay "a dollar or two" for content that takes a minute, or even five, to read. A dollar or two is more like a small game app, or a on iTunes that you'd listen to many times.

I think you might get 5% of people to tip you a nickel for your particularly good Medium post, if the operation cost you nothing more than a click.

But unfortunately, that's less than the credit card processor will take to handle the transaction. You could set yourself up as the intermediary so that you can batch up transactions, but now you're handling money. That's a huge hassle, and it's why the credit card processors can help themselves to $.10+2.6% for handling your transactions.

Cryptocurrencies could have actually had a use there, but before it got started the entire domain was swamped with speculation, money laundering, scams, and speed-running the history of financial regulations.

smoldesu 3 years ago |

There is no good digitally-native currency. On top of that, nobody really wants to handle the liability of these transactions. Payment processors take their cut, sure, but I'm 99% more likely to pay someone with Paypal than I am to put in my CC details to buy $COIN. Plus, past attempts to implement this were ruined by scroungers like Brave taking unknowing creators' likeness for their system and creating shadow wallets for uninterested parties (see Tom Scott's famous callout post).

Giving anyone too much power over the transaction makes it unattractive, but removing the liability framework makes it unusable. The window you're looking for (completely free, secure and effortless transactions happening entirely in USD) doesn't really exist with the current legal and financial frameworks.

DamonHD 3 years ago |

1) You won't want to pay a dollar in most cases until you've made sure the article is worthwhile, and then it's too easy to claim that it really wasn't worth that and try not to pay your $1.

2) Agree with another commenter here that for the scheme to work it has to be in the pennies region, so that it's worth you taking that non-repudiatable change on something that you have not yet seen. (Prestel in the UK decades ago made this work, BTW.)

3) My previous-but-one startup was a small e-money issuer, and I really tried to get traction in this area but couldn't. Would still like someone else to make it happen!

WheelsAtLarge 3 years ago |

In terms of journalist, it does not make economic sense for the creators. Microtransactions will turn journalism into gig work with all the downsides that comes with that. It will also reduce the number of companies that control information since companies will fight to dominate the microtransaction space with only a few companies being able to compete. It's also not advantageous for readers. Readers will pay only for things they find interesting ignoring information that's important but not desirable to read. We'll have an even less informed citizenship.

salawat 3 years ago |

Easy frictionless peer-to-peer no middleman financial transactions are a "Deliberately Unimplemented Feature".

Why? Because nation states have a very keen and vested interest in regulating the process of transacting in the currency.

So you will never see it. The moment you do is the moment that medium becomes the preferred medium for those that everybody collectively wishes kept out.

bombcar 3 years ago |

If FedNow™ delivers what it promises, we might see something someday.

But likely it's mainly because the demand on either side isn't there, and what demand is there has been eaten by Patreon et al.