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Every time you turn a light switch on or use an appliance, you are being charged for the electricity used to run it; this cost is extremely difficult to track, is different for every device you own, and adds up such that at the end of the month the cost is non-negligible (at least to the point where you probably are paying more on utilities every month than streaming media services)... and yet, while people, in the abstract, care somewhat about reducing their usage of such things like water and electricity (and thereby put in at least a bit of effort to prevent the most egregious of wasted costs), almost no one is crippled by the "mental load of evaluating whether each" time they flip a switch or turn on a faucet is "worth it". It is kind of ludicrous that this argument against micropayments somehow holds as much traction with people as it does when essentially all people experience not only experience the obvious counter-example so often as to be nearly every waking minute of every day, it makes up a significant fraction of their overall expenses.


That's a good point. Obvious in retrospect, but I hadn't considered it. So clearly "micropayments" can work in some situations. That said, I still think when people are used to something being completely free, it will be difficult for them to adjust to paying for it; I do still expect it would add stress for a lot of people in the web context.




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