June 25, 2005: Micropayments

They seem like such a good idea. But there are a few bugs in the system. I thought about linking to some pictures of truly alarming insects here, but I think I'll just invite you to imagine hordes of dark, crawly, scuttling horrors . . . rustling chitinously toward you . . . But I digress.

The good people at Goats (which I hope you read daily, as I do) recently tried a micropayment experiment. You can read about it on their site . . . it's the June 14, 2005 news entry.

Executive summary: It blew up in their faces. We're talking singed eyebrows. We're talking shrapnel up the nostrils. To drop the metaphor, we're talking "The site was significantly less profitable during the period in which they offered a micropayment option."

Kudos to Jon and Phillip for playing pioneer, and I hope the arrows come out of their backs without too much screaming. And aw, shucks. I really like the idea of micropayments, but judging from this, we're not there yet.
-- Steve Jackson

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