Clay Shirky's Fame versus Fortune and Scout McCloud's Misunderstanding Micropayments: BitPass, Shirky and The Good Idea that Refuses to Die
Monday, November 12, 2007
Clay Shirky's Fame versus Fortune and Scout McCloud's Misunderstanding Micropayments: BitPass, Shirky and The Good Idea that Refuses to Die
The readings this week were thought provoking. I have a tendency to agree with Clay Shirky, but I tried to put that aside for the purpose of evaluating and understanding his critique of micropayment systems, and Scott McCloud's defense of them (or at least BitPass). Shirky argues that BitPass is doomed to fail and that simple mental transaction costs will act as a deterrent to buying online content, regardless of how low the dollar cost is. All I can do to see whether I agree is to examine my personal behavior online. I buy content, but only through iTunes. I don't download other individual tracks, even though I can on other sites..figuring out where and how to do it is more time consuming than using iTunes especially in the last few years. Is this because I think the record companies deserve my money? not particularly. Do i think the musicians deserve/are entitled to my money? Definitely. Would I purchase a track from a musician's website? Probably not. Granted this logic is flawed. I don't claim that this makes sense, I'm just making a comment on my purchasing behavior. To put it plainly, I'm done with entering my credit card number on web sites.. not because identity theft makes me nervous (though it does), but because there is no reason for me to do it. I am tired of opening accounts and making up passwords and deciphering captchas. It's boring and I have better things to do. So, would I put in the effort to open a BitPass account so I can pay someone 25cents? No, I wouldn't. In fact, i'd rather pay 10 dollars for one of Scott McCloud's books than pay 25cents for one of them. A micropayment just isn't enough motivation to invest five minutes into setting up another account. From my perspective as a consumer of online content, this system was doomed to fail. Honestly, if it's 25cents, I'd rather not read it. If it's 5 dollars, then maybe it's worth the account setup. Yes, this seems illogical, but these are my patterns. Additionally, I think we live in a culture where value is ascribed by cost. I don't think the world should be this way, but often times it is.. people who charge more for their work (not content specifically, but hourly rate for example..) are taken more seriously.. shoes that cost more are more coveted.. On the other hand, the standard is largely free content. Though I was interested in reading op-eds in the Times and looking through the archive, I did not join TimesSelect. It just seemed crazy to pay for online content. It seems that the majority felt the same was that I did, given that TimesSelect no longer exists. We have millions of pages to choose from at any moment of the day... That being said, I donate monthly to some of the blogs that I read and support NPR, because I feel it's important to support media that is “free” to consumers. I think for me it's not paying for content that is a put-off, it's setting up accounts. I think that's why we see iTunes succeeding so famously.. one account, one password, one mass of largely commercial music. If I want something else that's not available on iTunes, I buy the cd .. or the record!
I like Scott McCloud, I think he's one of the most talented and inventive people creating media today. I own his books and I would buy more, but I would not pay 25cents to see one of his comics online. If I had been presented with the idea for BitPass in 2003, I think I would have predicted its demise as well. After reading both of these pieces, I checked out BitPass on Wikipedia: On January 19th, 2007 Bitpass announced that they were shutting down, and operations officially closed on January 26th, 2007. No immediate reason for closure was given.
posted by Amanda @ 11/12/2007 12:26:00 AM,