A Good Case....

I completely agree with Clay Shirky's analysis of micropayments in his work, Fame vs. Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content. He nicely articulated the reason why he feels - and I feel, because I agree with him - micropayments will fail.

This is a great description:

"...the act of buying anything, even if the price is very small, creates what Nick Szabo calls mental transaction costs, the energy required to decide whether something is worth buying or not, regardless of price." He goes on to say," The only business model that delivers money from sender to receiver with no mental transaction costs is theft..." I love it...

This is a great argument against the whole idea of mcropayments....I completely agree, because it makes sense. Shirky's analysis is backed up with actual terms for things...like "mental transaction costs." Everyone does this when they are about to buy something, now it has a name. According to Shirky, the amount of free publishing has increased over the last several years....it makes sense....I mean, who doesn't like free things?