Micropayments & the Street Performer Protocol
(expression of interest)

Mike Warren

4 April 2022

I like the other suggestion of a ``monthly amount''; perhaps the client could send in some pre-paid amount every month and spend from that (this could perhaps be an option for people leery of sending money before they spend it). On the other hand, FD could use this as a partial revenue model: having people pre-pay would give FD a constant amount of money in the bank, which could bring some small amount of interest... I think a better revenue model would be to take some small percentage (< 1%) of all transactions. Obviously, some financial analysis would need to take place...

Such a service might also benefit from an implementation of the Street Performer Protocol, like so:

• people could volunteer payment for a book (or chapter or whatever)
• when the threshold the author desires is reached, they send their book (or whatever) to the service.
• the money is then collected from people who volunteered it
• once the threshold amount of money is received, the author is paid and the book (or whatever) is released.
• if the threshold amount is not reached within some specified time, nothing happens: the people who volunteered money keep their money and the author keeps her book (/chapter/essay).

The important points: money is not actually taken from people until ``enough'' is volunteered; the book (or whatever) is not released until actual money is collected. People who have volunteered money could be told when the threshold amount has been neared; perhaps they would volunteer a little more if they thought that would make the difference between a book (chapter, whatever) and no book. The book (or whatever) should be released under some type of open license; this would be the point of the system.

I would be interested in helping to develop this system.

Mike Warren <[email protected]>