@Edent I also have a gigabit connection and the biggest difference it made for me was “turning the Internet into my hard drive.” When you can download practically anything within minutes, it’s as if they were already laying around in your computer (conversely, you don’t feel the need to store as many things anymore except perhaps backing up against link rot etc).

@raine @briankrebs

I don't disagree, but then I don't know why it didn't get more popular either. UX might be another problem here: having to enter your credit card info (and to *share* it with a third-party) only to read a single article is perhaps too much friction? Maybe something like Amazon's 1-Click buying/access with PayPal's safety guarantees would greatly help here.

@briankrebs @raine

Sadly the costs associated with collecting payments online makes "micropayments" prohibitively expensive.

For example, Stripe† charges [0] 2.9% + 30¢ in the US which means that you earn 67¢ out of a $1 payment.

Flattr [1] comes to mind, but it shut down in 2023. Supertab [2] is another one I can think of that's also still active.

† I work at Stripe.

[0] https://stripe.com/us/pricing

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr

[2] https://supertab.co/