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Charging for content generates disdain, or worse, disinterest among Web users. When so much news and entertainment is freely available, the idea of getting charged for any of it seems like nothing more than corporate greed. But advertising-hating journalists, who dream of getting paid directly by readers, keep bringing up the idea. Dan Mitchell writes in his latest column that Internet users are slowly being conditioned to accept micropayments. The most noticeable example is our willingness to purchase songs off iTunes for 99 cents a pop. The argument is that we're willing to pay for things that we view as valuable — mainly music and videos, not, alas, the written word. So much for the dreams of ink-stained wretches.

Despite this, saavy content providers should be able to find content that users do value. The comedy site Something Awful charges $10 — not for its videos, but to register on its forums. Since its community is, for reasons that escape us, viewed as a valuable resource, 100,000 people have succumbed to the toll. One could argue that the charge also discourages the more obnoxious users from posting in the forums, increasing their value. Even so, Something Awful continues to milk revenue from users by charging incremental fees to unlock further options — search, archive access, custom titles, and so on.

With the release of Microsoft's Xbox 360, the videogame division has popularized the idea of "microtransactions." It's a common practice to extend the life of videogames by releasing new campaigns or maps. Originally such content was free, but now the Xbox Marketplace charges between $5 and $10 per expansion. There was an initial outcry from the community, but now they stomach the charge, as long as the expansion's reasonably entertaining.

There are now even entire games that take this model to the extreme. Some massively multiplayer online games don't charge a subscription fee, the traditional way for making money. Instead, the game is given away for free, and money's made as users play. Three Ring's Puzzle Pirates charges for item sales within the game. Each purchase, whether it's in-game currency or a fancy new virtual hat, is only a fraction of what an ordinary game subscription would cost.

As Mitchell points out, micropayments are more successful when introduced to "closed loop systems" like iTunes. But as the idea of micropayments branches out from the videogame and multimedia worlds, content providers should find ways to adopt micropayments as a way to avoid driving away consumers with large upfront subscription fees. The provided service just has to offer a value-added service that most users wouldn't expect for free. Sadly, that's not likely to be yet another text article on the Web. (Photo by Eek the Cat)