For some of us, it would be far better to do away with all weekly/monthly/yearly service charges and have those costs absorbed into transaction charges. For example, instead of paying $40 a month for dial-up Internet access with a limited free bandwidth and a charge per megabyte over that, you'd just pay a small fee per megabyte and no monthly fee. Your bank would not charge you account-keeping fees, but each deposit, withdrawal and transfer would cost you a tiny amount - that is, if your bank is petty enough to charge at all. Your cable television service would provide all channels without question, but you'd be charged a few cents per hour for what you watch, and just settle up at the end of the month.
The only barrier standing in the way of this microcharge service model is the greed of big companies. For most of us, the microcharge model would work out cheaper, which means less money going into big pockets. The unacceptable answer is to charge more per transaction, at which point customers balk at the thought.
Also, the model only works well for small consumers. To high-volume customers, such as mid-sized companies, monthly fees work out better than microcharges. That can be incorporated into the model with high-volume plans that charge only a regular flat fee that would probably be slightly higher than current service charges.
Mokalus of Borg
PS - Economics is fun.
PPS - I learned all the economics I needed to know in two weeks.
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