
a brief epistle as to the point as I can make it: there are two money models that people are continuously conflating here: 1. I send money to someone who is selling something. they send me that something. by definition, no billing was involved here. 2. I send a request to someone who is selling something. they send me the something, along with a bill, which I have to pay, or possibly decide not to. (the thing may arrive before or after the bill, wehther I pay, etc) (2) is a whole class of systems in existence today, such as your cable bill, your phone bill, etc. much of these systems *might* be better implemented as (1) if/when (1) becomes available. (example, your tv is charged micromoney, etc). but not *all* of them will be. (example: maybe phone companies prefer to accumulate chages and bill at end of month. also, major "float" issues are often involved here, although in that case not in their favor. "float" theoretically evaporates with microcurrency) regarding (2), it would be *possible* to have a billing system that involved microcharges, but frankly I don't think this will be very feasible or a wide use of the system. (1) and microcurrency go together. (2) and microcurrency do not. is this fairly apparent or should I give more examples? lets say I consider hitting a web page that has a "rate" of 2c. I would not call that a "bill". I haven't hit the page yet or requested a service. but when I hit the page, the page says, "send me 2c". I would not call that a bill so much either in the classic sense-- it would be like saying a cashier bills you when you hand them cash. well, yes, in a strange way I guess but not really. note that (1) presupposes that you actually have a cash type system. systems such as credit cards whereby the payment is not necessarily ensured, stuff like defaulting or rejecting a purchase etc. don't fit in too well with microcurrency, in which we are talking about cash.