Re: Bitpass Micropayments

[____Textpert Alert____ <ianf@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wrote Rich Pasco:

> Bitpass is a company implementing micropayments.
> For info see https://www.bitpass.com/spend/FAQ/


Hardly micropayments; from https://www.bitpass.com/earn/FAQ/ :
"BitPass combines money transfer and access control services.
[...]" which is done in non-transparent, multistep, repetitive
and therefore obnoxious manner.

Implemented by some unknown entity that never presents itself
to begin with, discloses its whereabouts; never mind the
underlying philosphy, ie. how it is supposed to benefit
Internet users ("spenders") and publishers ("earners").
Perhaps because its main beneficiary are the near-anonymous
BitPass owners. It therefore ought to be called the spade it
is, a scheme to skim off 15% of so-negotiated online content
purchases.

Convoluted acquisition process notwithstanding, any pricing
scheme with US$0.1 as the smallest creditable unit can not
be classed as micropayments, beacuse THAT CONCEPT hinges on
four main, and concurrent, characteristics (let's call it
"TACT", after its four initial letters):

  - True microscale charges: US$ 0.0001 (one ten-thousands
    of a cent), or even 0.000001 (one hundredth-thousands)
    as the default payment unit, roughly (perhaps) the price
    of any word on a web page or equivalent. Micropayments
    create wealth by acumulation of microscopic charges for
    all accesses on a given website over a time period, not
    by taxing each reader there of specific, individually-
    priced documents/items (that's "macropayments").

  - Accountability. Browsing history/ running tally of charges
    with configurable ability to display explicit yet unobtrusive
    notification window or similar providing the user with
    selected data like accrued browsing time per session, per
    site; daily, monthly and total charges and the like (all
    posts chosen by the user, and easily reconfigurable.)

  - Configurability. Maximum charge thresholds per page/ site,
    domain; time limits etc are set up in user's client during
    configuration stage, then adhered to "religiously".

  - Transparency. Content payment negotiation is immediate,
    implicit and wholly hidden from the user. Once micro-
    payments-enabled browser fired up, no further interactions
    / authorisations/ site-page-item-agreements are to be
    needed n/or permitted.


[Had you been reading this in a micropayments client, the charge
for this text would be 363 units, this administrative pointer
included. At most approx. 4 thousandths of an US dollar, ie.
not an amont that justifies a passing thought. That's micro-
payments for you.]


__Ian