The difference is that in micropayments the debt is practicially nothing, a fraction of a cent. So there's basicially no risk. Pre-pay, post-pay, doesn't really matter.
With minipayments, you could still lose a dollar or something. It's like a vending machine. If I put in a dollar and don't get a cookie, I will be pissed. You can run a buisness of setting up fraudulent vending machines that scam customers on the first purchase and dont put out cookies.
I don't really care if I put a tenth of a cent in and don't get my crumb out. I just won't buy the rest of the cookie. The margin on selling me the whole cookie is greater than scamming me out of a fraction of a cent. So it's not feasible to scam.
So the distinction matters. It's a difference in kind because in one model there is enough risk to sustain a buisness model off of scamming, which requires all this extra infrastructure for fraud prevention.
The benefit of micropayments is you don't need all this overhead for for fraud. Anyone can set up a vending machine pretty much anywhere and sell to anyone else.
With minipayments, you could still lose a dollar or something. It's like a vending machine. If I put in a dollar and don't get a cookie, I will be pissed. You can run a buisness of setting up fraudulent vending machines that scam customers on the first purchase and dont put out cookies.
I don't really care if I put a tenth of a cent in and don't get my crumb out. I just won't buy the rest of the cookie. The margin on selling me the whole cookie is greater than scamming me out of a fraction of a cent. So it's not feasible to scam.
So the distinction matters. It's a difference in kind because in one model there is enough risk to sustain a buisness model off of scamming, which requires all this extra infrastructure for fraud prevention.
The benefit of micropayments is you don't need all this overhead for for fraud. Anyone can set up a vending machine pretty much anywhere and sell to anyone else.