This month's issue is about micropayments, which are basically just very small online payment transactions, like 5¢ or 10¢. They are not yet really possible, b/c most online payments are done through credit cards, which have a minimum amount of a few dollars, in order to make it worth their time.
Only way for any financial company to make it worth their time is to handle a high enough volume of payments, that they can drive down their minimum price. So what? - your're asking. Well, once micropayments become easier to use, you just might see 2¢ and 3¢ charges to view web pages that are currently free and supported by advertisers. How about online video viewing - pay $1 to view the first half-hour of a feature length movie?
Paypal recently announced new micropayment pricing, so don't be surprised if you start to see it cropping up.
Sincerely,
Kalen Jordan
kalenj@gmail.com
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About the author
Kalen Jordan is a freelance web developer, based out of San Diego, CA, with 5+ years of experience in PHP/MySQL and related open source technologies.
Previous Newsletters
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
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