50 times 0.10 is $5.

I don’t think micropayments will be barrier. And really, its an enabling technology not the prime driver for paid digital content. Whether there is a market for paid content in digital music or online journalism – only time will tell. What I know is that something has to give – both the music industry and the newspaper industry are bleeding. I am hopeful.

QED.

now, things will change, like i mentioned – there are two lines converging – one representing growth of micropayments, and one representing dropping costs of music. when they converge, this will work. when will they converge? my guess is, not this generation.

the smartest thing the music folks can do is to bring the price down to zero. and make money on something else.

1. Micropayments (in any meaningful scale) are not happening, and will not happen in the near future. New York Times will do something in 2011, and 0.000001 percent of people who can read in the world will own a tablet.

2. The minute you bundle 50 songs, there is a HUGE entry barrier for the whole purchase activity. "WHAT ??? YOU JUST PAID 50 DOLLARS FOR SOMETHING YOU CAN DOWNLOAD FREE?"

Music Piracy and inability to charge for quality journalism is one of those things our generation just has to live with. Its like the services business, you can do 1000 things and say 1000 things, but finally the indian engineer will work for 20k a month, 1 dollar equals 45 rupees, and bankofamerica (and countless others) is a profit making entity. thats how it is, and there is no way out.

good point but micropayments is happening now. You’ll see it on paid sites like New York Times on Apple’s tablet. And you might even see it on iTunes itself soon.

also, a low unit price doesn’t necessarily mean a micropayment infrastructure. Selling in bundles of 10 songs or 50 songs takes care of the payment side of things while keeping a low unit price per song.

I would like to think, there are two lines converging – one representing growth of micropayments, and one representing dropping costs of music. when they converge, this will work.

same holds for journalism.