CNET: Digital content spurs micropayments resurgence

Companies like Beenz, Flooz and DigiCash came too early, providing micropayment systems during the dot.com boom before major intellectual property holders - like movie studios and record labels - were willing to try out single sale business models. Now, with the advent of iTunes and the prospect of internet video on demand through companies like Netflix, the market seems to be maturing into something desirable. The remaining contenders, like PayPal, which survived as a property of eBay, and credit card companies that have reluctantly begun to offer better deals to ecommerce dealers, are to enjoy a $3.1 billion market by 2009, according to Jupiter.

The early predictions of newspapers and websites charging for single stories still seems far off, not because of technology concerns, but because people seem not to spend as much money when print content is divvied up in that fashion. Early advocates of micropayments spoke of people paying fractions of pennies to view other peoples' posts on bulletin boards, making erudite thinkers rich. The current boom in micropayments is coming instead from very traditional forms of paid content, mostly music. A Mercator analyst predicted that this would remain so for some years to come.