Charging an anonymous caller a fraction of a cent for a single request was impractical because the collection cost exceeded the payment itself, since existing usage-based charging (cloud services, APIs) only worked for known buyers with API keys.

The web already charged by usage for known buyers, but collecting a fraction of a cent from an anonymous caller cost more than the payment was worth, making micro-payment to anonymous traffic impractical. ✦ AI generated

Author · ByteByteGo Newsletter · 2026-08-11 · original ↗

parts of the Internet were already charging by usage before any of this. Cloud services and APIs have been sold by the call and by the hour for years, though only to a buyer the seller already knew, who signed up and received an API key. Charging an anonymous caller a fraction of a cent for a single request stayed impractical, because collecting such a small payment once cost more than the payment returned.

Read full article ↗excerpt · fair-use quotation