Eric Hughes writes:

You can still use an account mechanism, but with an intermediary whose business it is to aggregate small amounts as these proposed and clear the total periodically. That's now one account setup for the customer.

How, though, would the ftp site which wants to know whether I'm "good for" the one cent charge to download PGP do so? Does it have to check with an agent on the net somewhere which will vouch for me? Aren't the communica- tion costs then the same as an online system? Or does it extend me the one cent as credit and hope that I really do have an account with that agent (or bank)? Then that seems like a basic off-line system. So I don't understand the role of agents in solving this problem. I find it confusing to imagine a situation where large numbers of goods are sold for very low prices. Will people tend to cheat, since it's easy to get away with it (all those systems offering you one cent credits), or will they tend to be honest, since the per-use cost is so low (but perhaps adds up over a month)? I suspect that nobody will pay if there is a way they can use the servers without paying, even though they are only saving a fraction of a cent each time. Maybe that's just my jaundiced view of human nature. Hal