For a number of years there have been various attempts at designing a
micro payment system that works effectively for small amounts of money
that paying by card or Paypal for example, most just can’t be bothered
to do.
Since the 1980s, when I first started playing around with a nascent
Web, I realized that content had to have some kind of universal exchange
value in the form of inputs – what you contribute in the way of
content, and outputs – what gets ‘consumed’ and paid for. Ideally, when
you access a Web page, after reading a precis you’d be asked if you want
to ‘buy’ the content. By clicking on a button, your online account
would be automatically debited, perhaps only pennies, or even fraction
of a penny.
Likewise, when one of my pieces pops up on numerous Websites (often unknown to me), its use value
would always be tracked and counted, all automatically of course, else
it won’t work. Ideally, it should work for both reading and for
publishing/republishing.
The problem has always been how to make it universal, so that a real economy that’s generating real, but this is important, dynamic value
can develop.
The dilemma for Capital is that the Web blows away the concept of private ownership, it just gets in the way of doing business
The value is dynamic because the value of any piece of
content would vary with use, the more ‘consumed’ it is, the greater it’s
value. Taken individually, the transactions would really quite small,
but multiplied by millions, even billions of users, those who actually
make the wealth that resides within the Web, that’s you and me, could
earn a living by simply utilising the Web either by contributing useful
content (difficult but doable) or by consuming content (easy– if it’s
tiny amounts of money, not a a quid a page, which is what Murdoch’s mob
are charging). But I think it would certainly sort the wheat from the
chaff.
Of course, not every site need participate, I reckon most would
remain just as they are, free, but over time its use would spread, even
if only to try and pay for the cost of being online in the first place!
Why should the owners of the mean of communication be the only ones to
make money simply out us just being here?
Right now, it’s only the big corporations that make money out of the
Web’s content, mostly sideways, that is from advertising. And they also
make money out of owning access to the Web’s infrastructure and its
links to all the other media outlets it also owns.
The attempts by some of the corporations to charge for content, eg
Murdoch’s News Corp, to build their own system of content ‘micro’
payment still follows the old, privatized method of wealth generation.
The Web economy cries out for socialist solution, firstly because its
use and function is ubiquitous, and secondly because it is made up of everyone
who uses it. And this includes all those design the software that makes
it function, but like I said, to make it work, we have to have a new
measure of value to reflect the way the wealth is generated.
I reckon the best way would be to build it into a new Web Server Standard via what we called an Anonymous Information Service
or AIS, this would automatically track transactions but do it
anonymously: all that’s being done is that numbers are being moved
around following a user’s or a contributor’s transactions across the
Web. The Server encrypts all the transactions so hopefully it’s secure.
The dilemma for Capital is that the Web blows away the concept of private ownership, it just gets in the way of doing business.
Check out the FLATTR system below for an example. This is their blurb, not mine.
* Flattr is a social micropayment platform that lets you show love for the things you like.
* Help support the people you like and enable them to continue with what they do.
* Add your own things to Flattr and receive appreciation from others.
I’ve just signed up by paying a small amount into a credit/debit
system that is the heart of FLATTR system as you start out paying
someone for all or part of any content that you grab, that is of course,
part of the FLATTR system. And therein lies the rub, you gotta join the
system in order to ultimately/potentially benefit from it.
Does it work? Well it’s not live yet so the jury is out, but
generating income ‘for the rest of us’ out of the work we collectively
perform in bringing news and information to readers/viewers is, in my
opinion, a vital part of the Web.
And it’s not all clear to me whether FLATTR (flatterer, ged it?
Swedish humour I suppose) is for consuming content or republishing it,
or both? I’m going to have to dig into it some more.
FLATTR
