Micropayments Suck, Rule.. which one?... who cares.

by phil on Wednesday Oct 8, 2003 6:01 PM
Idea Archive

Clay Shirky explains why micropayments won't work... and in good philosophistric syle, employes a cool economic concept of "mental transaction costs" Micropayments, like all payments, require a comparison: "Is this much of X worth that much of Y?" There is a minimum mental transaction cost created by this fact that cannot be optimized away, because the only transaction a user will be willing to approve with no thought will be one that costs them nothing, which is no transaction at all.

Comic Book artist Scott McCloud responds with his counter-arguments, primarily because he is the target of Shirky's criticism.

I love the Internet for helping me see both sides of coin on many things... but at the same time... to McCloud and Shirky, why can't we just, "wait and see"

Nazi Germany once posted a compendium titled, "100 scientists who think Einstein is wrong." Einstein responded by saying, "It should only take 1 scientist if I were truly wrong."

McCloud's and Shirky's essays are both long on talk, but at least for McCloud, he should just go out and make lots of $ from micropayments rather than gesture loudly.....

...okay, maybe McCloud has something to gain by defending his system because people may read Shirky's and lose trust in him.... but really, his argument should be like a bullet point thingy, listing good counter-arguments as one-liners, and ending, "you'll see, I'll prove you wrong ;-)"

It's like the more someone tries the cover an emotion up, the more words that are generated to do so... i.e. this guy, in a lot of words, is saying, "you hurt my feelings Shirky"

post's color is lightgreen... green has a forward analytical attitude. I chose a washed green though because I just woke up from a nap, so this post doesn't have as much energy into it.. though it deserves some color and whip.