Die Micropayments, Die
I have a new entry on the list of Web 2.0 words I wish would die: micro-transactions. Being in the virtual goods industry, I read a lot of publications about them and they constantly talk about micro-transactions and micropayments. (I’m only picking on TechCrunch with the links here because they’re the easiest and most visible, and they should know better, but it’s sadly pervasive.)
I’m tired of reading titles like “Zynga Pushing Nine Figures In Revenues Thanks To Micro-Transactions”. Micro-transactions implies they’re unusually small, or somehow different than all of the rest the millions of payments that occur on the internet every day. They’re not.
In fact, looking over the last roughly 4000 transactions we’ve received on our apps, the average transaction was $21.86. That’s not quite as high as Wal-Mart (~$56) or Amazon (~$54) are getting, but the markup is probably far in excess of theirs, and I’d actually be surprised if Zynga’s average payments are lower than ours.
But regardless, I hate being part of an industry whose success is routinely cited as proof that I and a bunch of other people are wrong about micropayments being largely worthless. If you define transactions ranging from $5 to $200 with an average of $20 as micropayments, then I guess we have to eat crow. If you define them in any sensible manner, then they’re still floundering.
