Why You Shouldn't Ignore Amazon's New FPS | Hacker News Reader

Why You Shouldn't Ignore Amazon's New FPS

paulstamatiou.com

25 pointsPStamatiou16 comments

Easy way to use micro-payments to your advantage. FPS is definitely opening some doors, allowing users to charge as little as 1 cent without issue. I already have a laundry list of ways I can use FPS and simple web services with micro-payments. What do you guys think of FPS?

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I am VERY excited by this!

I'm surprised people aren't amazed by the oppurtunities the micropayments open up and secondly, the fact that amazon already has 70mil customers ready to use FPS!

Every payment carries fixed "mental processing fee" (deciding whether to do it or not) that is not going to go away.

If it can literally be one-click away in some cases, that's all that's necessary for small amounts. Why do they have all that stuff right next to the checkout counter? Impulse buys. If things are cheap and very accessible, you are likely to think "whatever, fsck it", and buy it. I think that is a decent way to think about micro-payments.

I didn't mean to say that the "mental processing fee" will ever go away, but there are ways to put it in the back of your users' minds for a moment. The case I mentioned above, saying that something is limited edition or only for a short time, putting a personal spin on things, ..

Taxis.

Could you unpack that? I'm not sure how taxicabs relate.

A taximeter is an example of a UI where small charges accumulate, and you don't have to think about them individually.

I see. Thanks.

This works with current payment processing schemes as well: the accumulated result is no longer a micropayment. Examples: monthly subscriptions (WSJ, Basecamp), Amazon S3.

I agree, but the example doesn't work for this case. You don't think about each 1/8th mile on a ride, so the charges aren't thought of individually.

But the issue here is content that isn't worth much, and you pay a tiny amount for each piece. My application to yc shares more thoughts on this.

I do. It hurts to see the meter keep increasing, especially at stop lights or a few feet from the destination.

The best way to make a metered scheme hurt less is to hide the current charge, like an electric meter does, and only expose the value once per month. (the best way to decrease power consumption would probably be to expose the current charge in very visible and realtime way)

Paul,

I just heard a great NPR story about a power company that is doing just this:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1247674...

I think I agree, but that's only because I'm a cheap bastard. Also, I often stop myself and realize I'm biased towards thinking a cab is a better deal when it is moving faster -- as if I can magically avoid traffic and stop lights when I'm driving.

But I suppose the point is that user pain needn't be rational.

Or, as the update to the post suggests, allow people to pay a large amount up front.

When I first saw this, I thought maybe Amazon was balancing out its offerings by developing online games in the manner of Quake. Not so, but why the same acronym?

It could be plugged into a real FPS. 10 cents per frag :)

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