Le micro-paiement vu par Charlie Brooker

Charlie Brooker | My plan to save newspapers | The Guardian

But newspapers won't be free for ever. At least that's what Rupert Murdoch thinks, and he's probably evil enough to know. Last week he announced the Sun and the Times are to start charging for their online editions. But will it work? 

Nope. Not until someone perfects a system of universal online micro-payments once and for all. Some simple means of easily "tossing a penny in a cup" for the internet is required. Everyone knows it; no one's managed to crack it. Sure, there are systems such as PayPal (familiar to anyone who's used eBay), but they're fiddly and boring. What's needed is something universal and user-friendly. 

But more than that, it should be fun. 

That's right. It should be intrinsically fun to spend money. How? Huh? Wuh? Listen. If you ask me, one potential answer to the newspaper industry's woes lies somewhere in videogame design. A simple payment system shouldn't just be easy to set up: it should be intrinsically satisfying to use. It should feel positively Nintendo. Look at the Wii. Look at the micro-games in Rhythm Paradise, or Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, both on the Nintendo DS. That's how online payments should work. They should have the illusion of being tactile. 

On your desktop: a cartoon purse filled with fat gold coins. Pull out a penny. It shimmers on the screen. Drag it toward a "coin slot" situated right there on the web page you want to view, and drop it in. It disappears with a satisfying ker-chunk. And you're in. If you're feeling cavalier, you can throw your coin toward the slot; with practice it won't bounce off the rim. And hey, iPhone users: we'll even let you play. You can "fling" coins from your phone directly on to the screen. 

One page costs one penny: not too off-putting for anyone -- and crucially, the teeny spoonful of fun and satisfaction you derived from playing with that virtual coin each time is worth the penny anyway.