Yo are assuming away facts that some of us cannot assume away.
From your message Fri, 07 Jun 96 13:58:53 -0700: } }> }>> the wallet action will always }>> be tied with some other action. the user picks up the phone to dial }>> somewhere, and it says, "that will be .3c-- will you pay"? he says }>> yes. }> }> How will you know the cost is .3c a priori? }>What's to stop me from saying yes to the .3c and staying on the line }>forever? } }I don't understand why this micropayment thing is being thought }so complicated. } }I am making some simple assumptions that seem to not be obviously }apparent, apparently. }
Specifically, you assume that no one will want to audit and check up on micro-charges that accumulate nto bills. Like my phone bill with 5 pages of 2-5 cent toll calls. I really don't want to analyze all that, but I also don't trust the phone company to always present me with an accurate bill. So, I would rather deal with the accumulation schem by paying a fixed fee for a service that does not send me all that deatil that I cannot use or analyze. To use it I would have to keep a log, with the times of all calls to compare. Now, you want to move this kind of charging to some service I do not trust as much as I trust the phone company, and send me a bill for an accumulation of charges without supporting detail. Thsi might be OK for small amounts, but what about a large company where these undocumented microcharges add up to say, $200,000/year? How do we know that someone is not simply padding the bill? All we need is for the billing system to slip in an occasional bogus charge the looks for all the world like any other microcharge. You know, like the bank employee case where someone accumulates the round-up transaction adjustments to an account and ships the money to Switzerland. This is what you are omitting in your assumptions... I just don't believe the world is going to be so trusting....\Stef