[ClickZ] Past Is No Prologue for Micropayments

"Over the past few months, I've encountered many people influenced by [Clay] Shirky's declaration that microtransactions cannot work. They forget they've been making micropayments for water, electricity, telecommunications, and other services for years. Microtransactions are common and used every day.

They reply, "Online is different."

No, not really. The sole difference is that unlike older technologies like water, electricity, or telecommunications, no open and interoperable billing system has yet been implemented for online use. During the first 20 years of the electric or telephone industries, the situation was the much the same as it is now with online."

Vin Crosbie adds a few thoughts to his column on his weblog.