It seems I've been mentioned in the press, specifically in a Robert X. Cringely The Pulpit column — my name appears in the second-last paragraph. This is because I wrote him an email about his previous The Pulpit. I'm actually in the process of writing a rant related to this subject, but because I sometimes leave these things on hold indefinitely, and also simply for the sake of making information available, I'll copy the email I sent to Cringe here.

For the record, I'm quite enthused about the possibility of a completely digital-cash-based society, as mentioned by Cringe in the more recent pulpit. I've discussed this possibility with my co-Nutter, David Nelson, on a number of occasions. I'd like to have a "cash server" — what Cringe calls an "electronic tip jar" — runing on my computer, into which anyone can make payments.

There are a large number of interesting issues associated with this whole concept, but I don't wish to discuss them here and now, and Cringe barely touches them at all in his column. Some other time, perhaps. Suffice it to say that it's not as simple as slamming an electronic tip jar down on every page, as Cringe suggests. I hope one day it will be that simple, but we have a few details to nut out before we reach that point.

From: "The Famous Brett Watson" <famous@nutters.org>
To: <bob@cringely.com>
Subject: Death by a thousand cuts
Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 17:24:50 +1000

Bob,

I agree with the essence of your Fifth Law of Technology expressed in "Let's Get Small". Unless you're forging a new technology sector (where there is no incumbent technology against which you can be compared), the incumbent technology will always provide the source of greatest resistance to adoption. This is why "backwards compatible" solutions are often more successful than "clean slate" solutions, despite the supposed technical merits of the latter. Indeed, you should have factored laziness as well as money into the "cost" component of your fifth law, since even a totally free solution will die if the benefits of using it don't outweigh the benefits of keeping your existing solution and playing a round of golf instead. (Perhaps you meant "cost" to be both money and effort, but you were talking in the context of VC financing, mentioning laziness only in the following paragraph, so I assume not.)

This brings me to the point where I disagree. Vik's idea for aggregating micropayments is not a bad one in and of itself, but I think micropayments have other sources of resistance to overcome than simple per-transaction cost. The main one is the whole notion of being charged. Having a micropayment extracted from you per page view would be a bit like a death by a thousand cuts. In any case, you'd have to sign up for a micropayment account before anyone could bill you for it, and the whole "signing-up" process is way too much trouble. Alternatively, they can make it so that signing up is a trivial process, but then it's likely that the only contact details they will have for you is a Hotmail address: not a good credit risk.

On the other hand, the whole aggregated micropayment thing could work *if* the payments are voluntary in the first place. Credit risk is not an issue when payment is voluntary. Under such circumstances the micropayment aggregator tracks your total promises to all recipients (a nickel here, a dime there), then sends you a "bill" when your total promises become worth the transaction cost. You pay the bill if you want to keep your promises -- that is the only incentive and obligation to pay. Similarly, the aggregator pays the recipients when they have accumulated enough gratuities to make the transaction worthwhile. The aggregator would be able to make money simply from the interest on the money held in trust, although it would also be possible to charge fees. The notion that "every cent you pay goes to its intended recipient" is a very attractive selling point under the circumstances, so fees should be avoided if possible.

Regards,
TFBW