Write an iPhone application

Suppose you’re just cruising the web, and you happen onto an article you’d like to read from an out-of-the-way publisher, such as Fly Fishermen’s Journal, or Amazing Science, or Køngranit Game Cheats. Even if it only costs a few pennies to read the material, you’re still going to have to stop and put money up, unless you’ve already subscribed to this out-of-the-way site. So how likely is that you would take even an extra 30 seconds just to make a payment of pennies? The extra friction in the customer experience introduced by requiring someone to make an online payment is a big reason why the overwhelming majority of publishers don’t charge for viewing their content today, and when they do charge, they charge in significant amounts (i.e. dollars, not pennies). It isn’t just because consumers aren’t willing to pay even a few pennies, but because even for a few pennies it’s a lot of trouble for a consumer to register, choose a password, put up a credit card, and so forthtrouble for a consumer to register, choose a password, put up a credit card, and so forth. However, friction in the customer experience always creates a business opportunity, and this particular type of friction may create an immense one. One way to eliminate this payment friction would be to create a financial intermediary that signs up both publishers and subscribers to pay for a service that can be conveniently rendered via blockchain technology. The idea is to set up a blockchain payment system for consumers, one time, and then to connect it with a system that allows Web site owners of all types – from big-time publishing outfits to one-person hobbyists or cookbook publishers – to subscribe to this payment system with a single, simple API. To visualize how this might work, take a look at the German startup BlockPay, now trying to offer a convenient way for merchants to accept and monetize payments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It’s not too difficult to imagine combining this kind of merchant-oriented payment-processing system with a consumer-oriented payment-acceptance system, which would allow consumers to sign up a single time and then have the ability to make future micropayments (or macropayments) in dollars, euros, Bitcoin, or any other currency, to any web site content publisher.