No Subject

["L. Todd Masco" <cactus@bb.com>]

hfinney@shell.portal.com writes:
 > It's pretty clear that credit cards don't work for some of the transactions
 > people want to do:
 > 
 > 1) one-cent and fractional-cent charges for connecting to a useful Web
 > page or ftp site.  A useful resource like this wouldn't have to charge much
 > on a per-user basis to fund the equipment and people.

True.  This is a big problem that can't be addresses through credit cards,
 due to per-transactions costs.  However, one could cache transactions,
 perhaps even through a central agent, until the amounts were great enough
 (say, $5) to use the mechanism.

 > 2) Transactions with individuals or small companies who are not VISA
 > clients. It's not that easy for a mail-order shoestring startup to get
 > the ability to accept VISA cards.  Because of the danger of fraud, the
 > credit card companies like to see a storefront and/or some previous
 > history.  Someone who writes a nifty PGP shell and wants to sell it for
 > $10 per will have this problem.

Not true.  Teleflora is a company that sells automatic processing software
 and also will be a front-end to credit card companies.  You pay 'em, you
 get your merchant ID and go, and start getting checks every so often.

Additionally, more and more agents are appearing out there who are perfectly
 willing to serve as intermediaries.  Bibliobytes, for example, is soon
 going to expand its services to offer not just books but any software that
 people wish to sell (once we have our processing fully automated and the
 bugs cleared out -- books are just a boot-strap mechanism).

I see a lot of great ideas for e$ out there, but I think they all suffer
 from a central fault: there's no easy transition from the way people do
 business in the real world to an e$ model.  IMO, you've got to base a system
 in the way people are used to working and make a gentle transition, or
 it's simply going to fail purely on the learning curve.
--
L. Todd Masco  |  Books on computer available through any UNIX host with e-mail
cactus@bb.com  |  "Information wants to be free, but authors want to be paid."