Nick Szabo  🔑

Examples? I'm not aware of anything with near zero overhead like Lightning does. In particular, I'm not aware of any system that could make payments automatically - the most likely way to bypass the cognitive load problem.

The overhead of non-trust-minimized payments exceeded most mental transaction costs decades ago. Cos. were fielding web-based micropayments, tiny fractions of a cent, in 1990s, and almost every year since then. As w/failed science xpermnts all goes down the memory hole.

Reading between the lines, are you suggesting that lightning may be destined for the same failure?

No, just use of Lightning for smaller-than-traditional payments -- micropayments -- will fail. Lightning's strengths and areas of potential success are as instant worry-minimized pmts in the traditional consumer price range (tens of cents to $1000s).

Interesting. So do you believe payments of fractions of a cent have an unlikely future? Or will another mechanism be responsible for micropayments?

Yes, in consumer situations people of average developed country wealth are not going to deal with them. (In an extremely poor country it could possibly appeal to some of poorest of the poor, but they have many infrastructure issues to solve first).

What was the main issue causing failure?

Were the payments small enough to provide an alternative to a subscription model on a per use basis that would make purchase of say articles for a penny or less worthwhile to seller and buyer?

Do your own research. I am sick and tired of trying to education zero-knowledge lemmings on this subject. Next person that asks me to do their homework for free gets blocked.