Re: [xanadu] flecks ?????

[Jeff Rush <jrush@xxxxxxxxxx>]

____Textpert Alert____ wrote:
> 
>   end-frontend technology with built-in granular transclusion,
>   accounting and billing capabilities (as per Ted's original
>   concept; in WWW the latter later named "micropayments" --
>   still nowhere near in sight [see url below]).

You see micropayments nowhere because there is an array of powerful
forces working hard to prevent them.  There is the VISA/MC network,
which has a "dog in the manger" approach where if they can't have
the market at 0.50 $USD per transaction, no one else can, stating
that it *can't* be done below that cost, using their existing
clearinghouses.

There is the Federal Reserve system which wants 'managed'
banks at the monetary flowpoints, ostensibly to maintain quality
and stability.  They refuse to certify banks who use 'nonapproved'
micropayment systems.  They're hard to regulate.

There are the various taxation authorities who cringe at the idea
of trillions of anonymous, widespread transactions flowing thru
uncontrollable, tax-zone crossing, regions.  And they exerted
political pressure to keep David Chaum's anonymous Digicash
scheme from taking root in the U.S.

And there are those short-sighted engineers/banks that design the
micropayment systems who want to impose royalties on each
transaction, as a way to get fantastically rich.  Digicash and
the customer banks have done this as well.

The key to a micropayment system is not technical but political.
To be useful it must be tied into the global financial system,
but it keeps getting rejected.  The correct immune system
suppression meme has not yet been found.

-Jeff Rush