Mr. Bugaj makes some very good points about micropayments being a current capitalist fad etc, and I think his idea that venture capitalists do not necessarily exactly represent the interests of the population is interesting. his general message seems to be "lets look before we leap". I tend to agree that abuses of micropayments will be possible and one of the difficult hurdles for the system to overcome. I don't know how pathological or difficult they will be. intuitively it seems like they will be less severe than existing problems that have largely already been solved by bank technologies. however it is quite possible (perhaps even probable) that entirely new problems are going to arise with the introduction of micropaymens. so I wonder if people have ideas on some of the key problems that might arise with micropayments. it would be very useful to try to "head them off at the pass" and imagine what the implications of micropayments are going to be. here are two main problems I see right off the bat: 1. taxation. I suspect once the digital economy begins to get off the ground, the government is going to want to tax it, and in a way that is enforced technologically. I wouldn't be surprised if there are future proposals for "clipper like" technology that integrates taxation mechanisms right into the billing networks, mandatorily-- i.e. it is not up to the person to report it; they simply can't escape the reporting. furthermore when people begin to realize that "anyone" can effectively "create" cash, I expect to witness a lot of legislative panic ala today's pornography or whatever. (digital pornography is going to be extremely trivial in social implications compared to the ramifications of digital cash). the taxation problem is a part of a much larger problem: that of good government. could it be that microcurrency will affect our government? I think so. cyberspace has already begun to have discernable and palpable effects on government. and it is only beginning. so what I would like to say is that if we solved the problem of having a good government, issues like taxation would take care of themselves. 2. copyrights. the issue of copyrights is not even resolved today. when serious cash starts to be associated with cyberspace you are going to see a lot of incredibly agitated people, especially lawyers. I imagine systems will evolve that are similar to a technology that has evolved by which radio stations pay music companies whenever they play artists songs. (if any cpunks could elaborate on this system, I think it is an excellent preliminary example of how a microcurrency-like system would interact with a copyright situation). I think similar standards are going to be developed by which web page designers build up their pages, and a distribution mechanism of charges will be intrinsic. the author will get their desired "cut" of every transaction, the site editor will get some kind of cut, etc. this really revolutionizes the idea of a magazine or editor. suddenly anyone on the net can become an editor or writer, and become as financially successful as the market will support. the "scrape off" due to enormous bureacracies (media conglomerates) is going to vanish and be funneled into a renaissance of artistry I suspect.