Satoshi Nakamoto wanted Bitcoin to make micropayments POSSIBLE

[uchalkql]

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.
The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20110926195018/http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source?xg_source=activity

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[Sithara007]

I don't have anything against the concept of micropayments. But this facility has been greatly misused by the spammers recently, although now it seems to have come down a bit (may be due to the rising exchange rates).

[JeffBrad12]

No doubt how is satoshi think to make it becomes possible in the future as long as bitcoin to be the right answer for the micropayments. But facing the problem of bitcoin, especially a technical solution for the bitcoin itself. It needs to get fixed asap.
Looks bitcoin still being the best answer to be a micropayment method. We are still able to send a dollar through the bitcoin.

[uchalkql]

No doubt how is satoshi think to make it becomes possible in the future as long as bitcoin to be the right answer for the micropayments. But facing the problem of bitcoin, especially a technical solution for the bitcoin itself. It needs to get fixed asap.
Looks bitcoin still being the best answer to be a micropayment method. We are still able to send a dollar through the bitcoin.

You can send a dollar ... but how much are you going to receive? =)

[pooya87]

No doubt how is satoshi think to make it becomes possible in the future as long as bitcoin to be the right answer for the micropayments. But facing the problem of bitcoin, especially a technical solution for the bitcoin itself. It needs to get fixed asap.
Looks bitcoin still being the best answer to be a micropayment method. We are still able to send a dollar through the bitcoin.

You can send a dollar ... but how much are you going to receive? =)

if THEY stop spamming the network with spam transactions and stop filling the backlog with them in order to increase the fees, then i can still send a dollar with a reasonable fee. something like 10-20 cents or even with 0 fee and get a confirmation within reasonable time.

[Pearls Before Swine]

No doubt how is satoshi think to make it becomes possible in the future as long as bitcoin to be the right answer for the micropayments. But facing the problem of bitcoin, especially a tech olution for the bitcoin itself. It needs to get fixed asap.
Looks bitcoin still being the best answer to be a micropayment method. We are still able to send a dollar through the bitcoin.

You can send a dollar ... but how much are you going to receive? =)

Probably a dollar.  I think the question is,  how much are you going to get charged for it?

Help me understand this.  Who exactly has the great need to send a dollar or less?  Are we talking about stuff like buying songs or stuff online?  What's the problem that bitcoin is solving here?  PayPal or my debit card do just fine.  I spent 7 CENTS from my debit card the other day because I didn't have enough cash on me.  No problem whatsoever. Bitcoin certainly wouldn't have been a better option for me.

[Idrisu]

Macro payment idea using bitcoin and blockchain resolved and destroy the tools elites, politicians and central bank are using against their own citizen. In my country central bank announce last time that they have a record or trillions dollar abandon in dormant account in the commercials bank and I keep wondering why should people abandon that huge amounts in bank why majority cannot get food on there table.thank you satoshi!

[Xester]

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.
The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20110926195018/http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source?xg_source=activity

Though Satoshi Nakamoto wanted bitcoin to be used in micropayments but because he has left bitcoin behind many unwanted developments have occurred and micropayments will no longer be possible with bitcoin. The problem lies with the high miner fees per transaction that are being a burden to bitcoin holders. If we do micropayments it is a waste since the miner fees will be much bigger than the bitcoin you send.

[LoyceV]

No doubt how is satoshi think to make it becomes possible in the future as long as bitcoin to be the right answer for the micropayments. But facing the problem of bitcoin, especially a technical solution for the bitcoin itself. It needs to get fixed asap.
Looks bitcoin still being the best answer to be a micropayment method. We are still able to send a dollar through the bitcoin.

You can send a dollar ... but how much are you going to receive? =)

Even worse: how much is it worth when you want to spend it?
Bob pays Alice $1, and pays $0.40 fee. Alice wants to buy something, and after another $0.40 fee the $1 is worth $0.60 only.
Bob's $1.40 turned into $0.60 purchasing power for Alice!

In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009

The irony is: this centralization is exactly what's happening to Bitcoin now!

if THEY stop spamming the network with spam transactions and stop filling the backlog with them in order to increase the fees

We don't live in a perfect world. Spam won't stop, just as email spam won't stop. It has been suggested in the past to stop email spam by charging a very small fee per email. Luckily there is not a single party that can enforce that, due to the open nature of the protocol.
Nobody in their right mind would suggest paying $0.40 to send an email, but for Bitcoin this has become reality.
What Bitcoin needs is a way to function with or without transaction spam.

[uchalkql]

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.
The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20110926195018/http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source?xg_source=activity

Though Satoshi Nakamoto wanted bitcoin to be used in micropayments but because he has left bitcoin behind many unwanted developments have occurred and micropayments will no longer be possible with bitcoin. The problem lies with the high miner fees per transaction that are being a burden to bitcoin holders. If we do micropayments it is a waste since the miner fees will be much bigger than the bitcoin you send.

I think we should be able to do a payment using Bitcoin, get it confirmed within the next 3 blocks, and pay no more than $0.10 fee.

An increase to 4MB block size would make this possible.

[audaciousbeing]

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.
The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20110926195018/http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source?xg_source=activity

From that quote, it seems no one can even see the beginning and Satoshi is not an exception as the bitcoin of today is now more than what he envisaged as at the time of making that statement. This is largely in my opinion, due to the fact that bitcoin is now beyond Satoshi, with lots of investment that have been put into it and people expecting high ROI which is the reality we have to face now.

[Mometaskers]

Sadly, microtransactions seem to be a distant dream now, with bitcoin's power-that-be doing their best to keep transaction fees high to milk us. And this could be probably a reason while widespread adoption would take a much longer time. People want to see results immediately. Until microtransactions become possible again, they won't be looking at bitcoins as a viable fiat alternative but just a commodity to buy and sell to earn a profit.

[webtricks]

Sadly the essence of corruption rooted Blockchain too. The dynamic fees system is good example for it. If you pay high fees, your transactions get confirmed swiftly while low fees struggle! Bitcoin community was in better need of dedicated miners than profit-making miners and this says all. God knows we would ever see decrease in fees or any hard fork will help or not!!

[spngebob]

No doubt how is satoshi think to make it becomes possible in the future as long as bitcoin to be the right answer for the micropayments. But facing the problem of bitcoin, especially a technical solution for the bitcoin itself. It needs to get fixed asap.
Looks bitcoin still being the best answer to be a micropayment method. We are still able to send a dollar through the bitcoin.

You can send a dollar ... but how much are you going to receive? =)

Even worse: how much is it worth when you want to spend it?
Bob pays Alice $1, and pays $0.40 fee. Alice wants to buy something, and after another $0.40 fee the $1 is worth $0.60 only.
Bob's $1.40 turned into $0.60 purchasing power for Alice!

Well said. Not to mention if price goes more up in some moment we will pay 2$ fee for 1$ transaction.

[BillyBobZorton]

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.
The usual solution is for a trusted company with a central database to check for double-spending, but that just gets back to the trust model. In its central position, the company can override the users, and the fees needed to support the company make micropayments impractical.

Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20110926195018/http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source?xg_source=activity

What satoshi seems to not have realized is the fact that in order to cater for mainstream-level of micropayments possible onchain, we would go back to the trust model, since the nodes would be centralized datacenters, which would be the same as having the central database. We would change centralized servers to centralized nodes. The whole thing is nonsense, we need to find a middle ground.

Satoshi Nakamoto added payment channel support since day 1 and Hal Finney mentioned the idea of the settlement layers. It's clear that we have to choose: fast mainstream micropayments offchain with decentralized node network, OR fast onchain micropayments with centralized node network

[bartolo]

Micropayments do not seem like a very viable option right now due to the saturation of the bitcoin network. The only possibility right now seems to be to use alternatives such as the Lightning network, used at the Room77 bar in Berlin, or the creation of specific micropayment networks like Changetip used to be.

[Yakamoto]

Well technically it would still be possible if the fees were a lot smaller, but that's mostly due to spammers filling up blocks and forcing fees higher, which gets everyone sending higher fees, etc. It's not like there's much that can be done beyond that aside from increasing block size really. More transactions with fees still gives roughly a similar return, with enough volume it all works out properly.

[uchalkql]

Well technically it would still be possible if the fees were a lot smaller, but that's mostly due to spammers filling up blocks and forcing fees higher, which gets everyone sending higher fees, etc. It's not like there's much that can be done beyond that aside from increasing block size really. More transactions with fees still gives roughly a similar return, with enough volume it all works out properly.

I don't understand why people are blaming spammers.

It should not matter the number of transactions, but the value of the fee being paid.

If "spammers" are paying >= $0.10, then they are not spammers.

Miners should (and probably do) discard transactions paying < $0.10.

[Nagadota]

Well technically it would still be possible if the fees were a lot smaller, but that's mostly due to spammers filling up blocks and forcing fees higher, which gets everyone sending higher fees, etc. It's not like there's much that can be done beyond that aside from increasing block size really. More transactions with fees still gives roughly a similar return, with enough volume it all works out properly.

I don't understand why people are blaming spammers.

It should not matter the number of transactions, but the value of the fee being paid.

If "spammers" are paying >= $0.10, then they are not spammers.

Miners should (and probably do) discard transactions paying < $0.10.

Spammers don't matter that much.  Micropayments were always going to be impractical in this PoW system.

Satoshi doesn't have to be right about everything.  He produced something great, that's all we need to know - after that, what matters is what happens to it, not what he believed would happen to it.

The point is that Bitcoin gives people responsibility for their finances while banks take that responsibility.  Therefore, banks can give the option of paying microtransactions while Bitcoin can't - banks can offer fees as a percentage rather than an amount.  Since Bitcoin's fees don't increase very much with an increased amount of Bitcoin being sent, it means that what you pay is low for large amounts and will always be high for low amounts.