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. I don't think micropayments make sense in transactions in which the buyer requires the ability to back out of a purchase. in other words, if I download an FTP file, pay 2c, and then say, "this isn't what I wanted", I don't think a refund is typically going to be supported. it would be up to individual vendors, but I doubt very many would allow it. a service [x] knows how much they are going to charge for a file or a http transfer. they tell the user, "you can have this for [x] cost". the user *sends* them the money to get the data. there is no concept of the company going into their wallet and pulling out the cash. the buyer sends the token and initiates the entire transaction. I am not saying this micropayment thing is going to be the only way future transactions will work. of course not. it's just one way that makes some assumptions. what about services that don't deliver? I would imagine a cyberspatial equivalent of the BBB will be just fine for that. an agency that registers complaints. a company doing a micropayment bilk scheme could only get away with a small amount of cash before they got a bad reputation. the reputation could be checked by the browser prior to paying, that kind of thing. the example I gave of a phone service billing people for phone calls was not a great example for micropayments, but it could be pulled off. imagine that your phone has a little readout that tells you how much you are being charged. you can cancel the call. you can watch your little readout as it bills you money. you could set limits, "do not pay more than 10c/minute". these limits are built into your *local* wallet (browser, phone) etc.-- they are not handled by the company that is charging you. hence you retain full control. If you disallow that, how? Will it cost the same amount if
I'm not sending anything as it will if I'm sending a live video + audio feed? If so, what's to stop me from bundling my whole neighborhood's Internet traffic into this call? If not, how will you tell the difference without monitoring my usage and requiring me to pay for the additional bandwidth I use?
MICROPAYMENTS. they are for small transactions. the standard billing model will be used in other situations as it is today, although it will be moved into a cyberspatial equivalent. micropayments are NOT going to be the only way the future economy will work. I think some people seem to have some misconceptions about this. it won't make sense to use microcurrency everywhere. I don't know if micropayments will ever be tied to each pack like you are proposing. at least in the beginning, I would assume a structure like the internet is today with a micropayment charges built on top of it like I suggested with browsers or that kind of thing. companies will probably charge for bandwidth if they are charging for network services. you can't send a lot of data without using more bandwidth.