As part of a class project I’ve been reading the Online-News mailing list and responding to some of the issues and discussion brought up there.
One of the topics this week was minipayments. Some have seen these and micropayments as the web’s future in terms of revenue–many small charges added up without requiring users to jump through hoops. Minipayments fall more into the $5 range. The Online Publishers’ Association did a study saying these are bringing in less than $15 million/year, but it was pointed out that this low figure may be because they aren’t offered by many sites.