During the early days of Internet, the majority of content found online is offered free of charge, either by different institutions or universities. As the years pass, the Internet has experienced several innovations. An important factor in the evolution of the Internet is the ability of consumers to buy, sell and promote products and services, a concept which is more commonly known as "electronic commerce."

As the popularity of the Internet grows continuously, it is natural for content providers to start looking for different ways to make money from content they post online. There are basically three ways for users to make money with the contents: one is through advertising. Here, the content is freely available, however it comes with certain advertisements or links to sites, its sponsor.

Another way for content providers to make money is by charging subscriptions, where consumers are forced to pay a certain amount in exchange for access to the contents of a certain period of time. The downside of the subscription model is that it only provides an option for the consumer - either do not pay the subscription and therefore do not receive or pay a fee content important for all content. Often, this type of election led consumers to go to sites that offer content for free. Meanwhile, the third form of income is through donations that are requested by content providers themselves.

However, in 1998 a fourth entry was proposed - the system of micropayments. The concept of micropayments not die completely, nor fully to life. What are micropayments, exactly? Micropayment is generally defined as the means of transferring small amounts of money (usually in pennies, nickel or dime), usually in the purchase of digital content like music, movies, games and more.

Because such small amounts load through the system of payment such as credit cards is not practical, the micropayment system is a viable option for those websites that want to go "micro." The main objective is to target micro high-volume consumers, providing content to a relatively low price. It is also common for micropayment systems to collect multiple payments and then upload it to a periodic payment.

Most advocates strongly micropayments micropayments system is the solution to free rider problem for sites that rely solely on advertising. As for websites that are charging subscription fees, micropayments will be a viable alternative to increase the number of consumers.

However, despite all the benefits that micropayment systems may offer, its popularity among consumers did not quite long enough. This is mainly due to pressing disadvantages micropayment critics are quick to point out. Most critics insist that micropayments micropayments system could cause discomfort rather than convenience to consumers. How so? The argument used is "mental transaction costs."

How much is the mental operation mean? Well, this is when a consumer stop and think twice if the content is actually worth the price, no matter how small the price. This could reduce the number of his client, and that more people would opt for free content.

The people pushing micropayments believe that the dollar cost of goods is most responsible for deflecting readers from buying content, and that a reduction in the price levels of micropayments allow creators to begin charging for their work without divert readers.

Another possible drawback of using micropayment systems is that it requires the consumer to use major credit cards. Remember that Internet consumers are very diverse in age, therefore, can not assume that they all have credit cards. Because teens are minors who have no credit cards. Moreover, even among those consumers who live in highly developed countries, not everyone has a credit card, and someone else credit card loans only to read a certain article on the Internet would prove to be a major drawback. In short, micropayment systems may well alienate consumers who do not have credit cards.

So with all these disadvantages, why do we need micropayments? With the growing demand for ethereal (as information) in the world economy and immediate delivery at a low cost, the usual payment methods seems impractical. Like most information found online (websites, blogs, etc) only cost a penny, the cost of cargo in the form of regular pay in turn to be more expensive than the actual product. Therefore, the micropayment is a viable alternative.

A lot of content providers agree that micropayments offer the opportunity to recover the cost of publishing online, including, possibly, make money, that is, if sufficiently popular. Currently, content providers see their online popularity as a disadvantage, since its popularity forced to pay large amounts of bandwidth. Another benefit that micropayment systems offer content providers the opportunity to be completely free from sponsorship and advertising, which gives them greater independence. No advertising provider editorial materials could concentrate on the interests of consumers rather than the interests of its advertisers.

Micropayment systems are showing signs of recovery recently, what with the launch of Apple's iTunes $ 0.99 a song, the model is finally showing some signs of life. In addition, reports on the status of paid content market shows that the content purchases under $ 5 rose 707% in 2002. A real achievement, as he jumped sevenfold from practically nothing.

Although millions of people find the idea of ??buying songs on iTunes attractive $ 0.99, Apple's managers admitted that most consumers still prefer to buy larger packages albums instead of buying a song. After all, Internet users do not purchase the content as if it were a piece of candy. Some micro-payment solutions even admit that their customers are charging less money in their accounts than originally expected which means that a major obstacle remains. Now, if the system of micropayments finally find success on this occasion or not still depends on the behavior of consumers, an obstacle that has not yet been crossed.