Kamikaze Marketing (why usage billing kicks freemium's bottom)

Micro billing is an interesting model. But I think he "underestimates" the mental burden of checking whether a particular service or content provider is billing me correctly. Flatrate tariffs are popular for a reason.<p>It makes me uneasy to think that 40 different websites would use my credit card details to bill me whenever _they_ thought I had used their service.<p>Of course, there's a way to lower that mental burden by introducing a middleman. Someone who would run an application/content provisioning platform and hence would be able to check all usage data, enforce contracts and resolve conflicts.<p>Guess what LM (the author's company) does. On their "vision" page (<a href="http://lmframework.com/page.php?id=vision" rel="nofollow">http://lmframework.com/page.php?id=vision</a>) they say "Our kids will not access multiple websites. They will simply use their favourite stream manager". So I guess LM would be that "stream manager", gatekeeper to what was once known as the web.<p>It seems likely that a model like this will be popular for some sorts of services. But I very much doubt that LM will play that role.<p>So many people want to be the platform on which everything runs, the store in which everything is sold, the gate through wich every HTTP message passes, the cloud in which all our data lives. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, they all want to be that.<p>Micro billing may be a good idea, but starting a company that aims to be the new mother of all platforms, including a new business model, application provisioning model, data model, application development paradigm and what have you, that's a Kamikaze business model if I have ever seen one. <a href="http://lmframework.com/page.php?id=lmf" rel="nofollow">http://lmframework.com/page.php?id=lmf</a>

i found the articles interesting. i say articles because i clicked through to another one of the author's articles, as well as clay shirky's 2000 post.<p><a href="http://lmframework.com/blog/2009/06/freemium/" rel="nofollow">http://lmframework.com/blog/2009/06/freemium/</a><p><a href="http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/19/micropayments.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/12/19/micropayments.ht...</a><p>i thought the post provided a fair bit of detail and discussion. it wasn't fluff, though also not flawless.

The "micro billing" proposed in this article is composed of micropayment that are tallied in the background. As far as I can tell, the only difference between microbilling and micropayments is that there's no confirmation dialog.<p>You're still deciding every day whether or not to spend the 20 cents.

When the author submitted his previous article I replied here at HN with the Clay Shirky link and a thought experiment. I like how the new article contains the Clay Shirky link and a thought experiment but doesn't mention Hacker News, or the discussion we had here, at all.<p>Anyway, I predict failure. Let me know when there's stock I can sell short.

For an interesting take on microbilling in combination with web access have a look at Ted Nelsons work.

Problem is trust. You need to be a well-established retailer before well-established banks will allow you to charge credit-cards for an arbitrary amount without explicit permission.

Microbilling in the form presented in the article is still so unpopular as a method of payment that I doubt its worth considering at the moment.

really tasteless (and unfitting) comparison. and your blog is ugly.