Or under any realistic payment system that end users would want to use
No offense, but micropayments have to be the most often suggested non-solution to any problem since the "402 Payment required" code was added to the HTTP spec
Idk, I’d pretty happily pay $0.50 to use an infrequently used utility once, if it was totally effortless. But everything wants like $20-30, or even worse, to lock me into some monthly subscription.
That level of effort is something I think matters a lot. If you could make it incredibly easy for people to spend $1-2 (and no more), you could get a TON of money out of people. I dunno how you'd solve that major structural issue, but if you could, it sounds like a goldmine. If nothing else, microtransactions in software would probably explode more than they already have.
I think hypothetical/magic micropayments that just work(TM) actually solve lots of problems. The problem is with the “realistic” part, which is why it always comes up.
No offense, but micropayments have to be the most often suggested non-solution to any problem since the "402 Payment required" code was added to the HTTP spec