Voice/Fax Checks

[hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)]

   Eric Hughes writes:
   >You can still use an account mechanism, but with an intermediary whose
   >business it is to aggregate small amounts as these proposed and clear
   >the total periodically.  That's now one account setup for the
   >customer.

Hal:
   How, though, would the ftp site which wants to know whether I'm "good for"
   the one cent charge to download PGP do so?  Does it have to check with an
   agent on the net somewhere which will vouch for me?  Aren't the communica-
   tion costs then the same as an online system?  

Your agent would purchase the service and immediately resell to you.
This legal arrangement need not be the same as the communications
flows.  The service provider is selling to a large trusted customer;
they clear transactions once a day, say.  The intermediary provides
small amounts of credit to the individual customers, who clear with
the intermediary when, say, they go over a limit, like $10.

What you have here is a liability transfer from a small customer to a
larger intermediary.

Eric