Misunderstanding Micropayments

Scott McCloud follows up on a piece by Clay Shirky in which Shirky shoots down micropayment systems, specifically talking about BitPass. McCloud’s article, Misunderstanding Micropayments is great, as I think his other essays have been, and he really hits on the proof that micropayments can work:

Most users are neither Saints nor Sinners. If getting it legitimately is just a few more cents, while getting it for free is just a little more work (or even risk), a significant number will “do the right thing” at the drop of a hat. At a time when 1% of computer users (Mac owners running OS X) just bought 10 million songs in four months