alt Hacker NewsBut how many people would really go to another site just to save 0.002? I can already go to the internet archive to read paywalled content. If needed and that option will still be available for the people that dont want to pay the 0.002.
Its a social problem and all it takes is one player breaking through. People have done this with far far worse things that people thought were unviable socially. Microbetting, microloans, gaming microtransactions, hardware subscriptions,
Your response is predicated on the fact that sites like archive.org already exist and don't charge. In a world with accessible micropayments, I think pretty much everyone would charge.
Sites like the internet archive are already funded by donations from viewers like you. I see the scheme as essentially spreading out the donations based on who uses the most bandwidth. It makes it easier for anyone to spin up a mirror of archive.org, and it makes it more secure for sites like archive.org to accept donations.
"Intermediate" micropayment solutions already exist. Anna's archive charges like $5 a month for a "donation" that puts you in a fast lane to download PDFs that you would otherwise have to get from some book site or a scientific journal. I bet they would prefer to charge per-download if they could feasibly do it.
I agree that some (most?) applications of micropayments are really gimmicky. But some applications are naturally suited to micropayments. The advantage of micropayments is that you can interact with ad-hoc vendors without setting up a pre-existing financial trust-relationship. For example, you could be at an bus terminal and have several pop-up vendors for wifi or electricity that charge per MB or per watt-hour. It enables competition.
The more gimmicky applications you mention like hardware subscriptions all involve some element of vendor-lock in that prohibits the advantage of micropayments systems in dealing with ad-hoc vendors. This is more analogous to those in-flight wifi services on airplanes: there is an established financial relationship with the airline and no competition, so there's little use for the low-risk micropayments.