Crypto solves this. The barrier to entry is cumbersome because of KYC, but after that the whole ecosystem is ready to go.
People talking 25 cents for an article. The ad revenue from viewing a single page with a few well sold ad impressions at $40 CPM is like 4 cents, and more often more like < 1 cent. I keep hoping to see Basic Attention token BAT get traction for exactly these microtransaction use cases.
Does it? Transaction times and transaction fees on some of the more well-known cryptocurrencies would seem to exclude them entirely.
There’s no particular reason that it has to be a decentralised cryptocurrency that operates in the manner required - preloading a few bucks here and there, which are transferred between accounts in small amounts.
As with many things that “crypto” solves, it is neither necessary nor sufficient. Some cryptocurrencies could form part of a solution. It’s not clear they bring any specific advantages to the table though.
While some of these issues might have been solved (kind of), there's no way anyone touches crypto for end-user microtransactions with a 10-foot pole today.
[1] https://www.pcgamer.com/50-of-transactions-were-fraudulent-w...
Or even better, have a ZK rollup between each client and a single intermediary, who manages ZK rollups with all publishers. Then you, as a client, don't have to worry about large amounts being trapped in escrow, and publisher payouts happen more regularly.
We could call it "Mastercard"
So would an sqlite database, possibly even a csv file