Through clenched teeth, I have often pondered the question of why no one has really solved the problems of global eCommerce. And before you say it, PayPal is not a solution. Also, don't talk to me about rumors (http://www.google-stories.com/2007/09/03/un-systeme-de-paiement-mobile-nomme-gpay/). What I want is an honest-to-goodness eCommerce-equivalent of the Internet itself, where money moves as freely as data, where international transactions appear as if they are local, where micropayments just work, where I am not being tracked like a criminal for moving my own hard-earned cash, and where the Banking System we inherited from Feudal times has finally been defenestrated. In short, where the friggin-hell is my GPay solution??
1. The world is a virtual blizzard of jurisdictions. Almost all of them regulate banking rather severely. Their requirements are often mutually unsatisfiable, and when they are not they are merely onerous. (Data privacy in Switzerland + Know Your Customer in US = Infinite Fun!)<p>2. Banks would rather strongly prefer not being disintermediated and will work to stop you from doing it.<p>3. If you have any issues in your model at all, you will be turned into an infinitely scalable money tree, if for no other reason than you are now the weakest link in the international system which has, after all, had since feudal times to learn (ineffectively, inefficiently, imperfectly, and a hundred thousand times better than you) how to deal with fraud.<p>4. Oh, massive incentive to fraud plus strict anonymity go together like puppies and blenders.<p>5. The banking system, which IS ancient and IS decrepit and IS frequently inept, is also getting better. I can move money from any ATM in Japan to my account in the United States in under four hours for $50. [Edit to add: and if I were a Mexican immigrant in the US this would be $3.] That is fifty times more than it should be, but it is also absolutely amazing, isn't it? Paypal is similarly a really long way from perfect but it is a short step from Good Enough For Most Purposes.<p>6. Micropayments are a solution in desperate search of a problem they solve well.