In my opinion, the current argument that people demand free content and will not pay seems to me to be a lot like early Internet (even pre-internet BBS) users who said the Internet wasn't the place for business. That obviously has proven wrong. I think the "people will not pay when they can find it free" theory will prove to be wrong too.
Price as barrier to entry is less of a concern than people think. The real issue for customers is the presence of a new container of content which must be paid for. It's getting over the barrier of actually paying that's an issue. If you have something of value, and make the barrier of entry to unlock the content via payment extremely low, people will pay for it.*
The "If your content isn't going to be free it had better be DAMN CHEAP!!!" mentality comes from the very loud, very wrong Slashdot-types who said the iPod would fail because it wasn't $89 and iTunes Music Store songs weren't gonna sell unless they were $0.15 each. They seemed to do fairly well. People are used to capitalism. A good price -- when paired with a good, desirable and confidently presented product -- indicates quality.+
If you tell your customer that you think your blog post is worth a penny, or that your newspaper is worth 5 cents, (plus the time it would take to actually pay for the product) why on earth is a customer going to think there is any merit to your content?
* Even a pre-signed in one-click "deduct a $0.05 from my microtransaction purse" is a barrier to entry. It's a small one, but you're still asking people to commit to buying something.
+ Obviously by "a good price" I mean a price which isn't so stupidly high that everyone has decided you're ripping them off, or a price so low that you are presenting your product as below-par, a knockoff, or otherwise worthless.
I do remember someone bringing up how Apple does micropayments (a la iTunes Store) and Apple charges once or twice in the beginning and then aggregate-charges the rest anywhere from the same day to a few days later. Most places interested in micropayments don't have that kind of luxury of users who will store credit card numbers and buy things on a regular basis..
A truly gateless ("zero click?") system which would just start charging your card the moment you landed on a page would obviously alleviate that issue, but that would imply a (probably currently impossible) amount of trust in content providers.
All that aside, I'm still not wholly convinced the numbers will work out for microtransactions at that low a cost even if people would go for it. I'm glad people are having the discussions, because obviously people need to continue to crack how to make money off of content that isn't a commercial song, TV show, or piece of software, but I'm wary of this particular proposal.
The current generation of gaming consoles does something close to micropayments and scrip at the same time, through their online shopping points. They solve the transaction cost problem by making you buy $20 worth of points at a time (I bought 15 Nintendo points for World of Goo, and then blew the change on an impulse buy - a copy of Opera). Points also solve the resistance problem, by having a captive audience of users who want what they offer.
The next step might be to allow game review sites to accept Nintendo/Sony/XBox points for access to content, demos, trailers, etc. At the same time, that would tie them more closely to the console manufacturers. More mainstream channels could follow as they see fit.
The transaction fees on a one time purchase of $20 is cheaper than on 15+5 or $1 20 times or even $0.05 400 times. The problem then is if the users would pay that much in advance, or if you can wait until that much as accumulated until you charge them for it. Then again there are services like tipjoy that manage that for you.
Fuel cell cars and many other technological attempts at fixing a major problem get a minuscule crumble of the pie. Perhaps the waste is mostly on mainstream media and reader/watcher time. Who cares, that was time and resources lost.
Now my attempt at a red-herring: those particle accelerators sure waste money for some meaningless questions.
You mentioned it would need to work across several platforms, but there needs to be an organization or company in charge assign prices, collect money, redistribute it, and take a little (or a lot) off the top for their services. In old or 'real world' business models this would be akin to a publisher, label, or other content provider. This is the exact thing that the internet has inherently undermined in many ways by making content distribution available to the individual.
Don't get me wrong, in many ways micro payments are enticing, but a completely new business model will have to emerge for them to work on the internet. I don't have a better suggestion, but then if anyone did you wouldn't be writing a speculative entry on the matter.
