Peppercoin Sold... And Almost No One Notices
from the so-much-for-that-plan dept
It's no secret that we're not believers in the concept of micropayments as a solution to selling content on the web. There are just too many problems with them. First of all, micropayments are often used on content that probably should be offered for free. Second, they add mental transaction fees that actually increase the real cost of the good while decreasing the value. Over the years, though, the press never seems to miss a chance to hype up the next big micropayment company, and Peppercoin was one of the biggest. It received a ton of press, with many predicting that its micropayment solution would become the way a tremendous amount of content would be offered online. Of course, that never happened. The company struggled and kept searching for a business model that would actually work. The latest is that Peppercoin has been bought by a company that sells "customer loyalty marketing programs" for an undisclosed sum -- and the press that hyped up the company as the savior of online content five years ago seems to have decided it's not even worth mentioning.
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Umm
Obviously this company is not worth mentioning. Who the hell are they?
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Pepper who?
The micropayment companies said we're better than Paypal because we wait until we have a million .10 cent transactions, and then we put it through Mastercard/VISA as one large transaction. I'm no economist, but the concept didn't make sense even then.
And I have to admit, I don't recall this company Peppercoin's name at all. What I remember is the concept of online micropayments, not this specific company.
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dot dot dot
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If you can't already see MP's in action then you're not in the loop.
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Micro payments
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