Micropayments Company Bought or is that Sold?
Micropayments company Peppercoin, started with technology by Rivest and Shamir has been bought by Chockstone, a company doing loyalty programs. Supposedly, they bought Peppercoin because it will “increase consumer ‘stickiness’ and brand affinity” and “increase average ticket price more than 12%.” Okay…. I thought that the reason for bearer-level micropayments was the opposite. Right here on the label that the payment-punks have been pushing, it says that you get increased market efficiencies, lower costs, and liberty for the end user. We’ll have to see how this one turns out. I suppose if this lets you buy books with airline miles, or something like that, you could get both.
‘Supposedly, they bought Peppercoin because it will “increase consumer ‘stickiness’ and brand affinity” and “increase average ticket price more than 12%.”‘
That’s not what the press release says at all! It says that “Chockstone’s restaurant, convenience store and retail loyalty programs have proven to:… Increase consumer ‘stickiness’ and brand affinity [and] Increase average ticket price more than 12%”. That’s a totally different proposition.
It should also be noted that Peppercoin haven’t been in the business of bearer micropayments for a while. As far as I can tell all they do these days is have interesting reporting tools for your purchasing history keyed off of the hash of your credit card number.
Peppercoin isn’t a bearer payment. It’s a bunch of bounced checks with a lottery to see which one gets paid. Like checks, it depends on very strong identity. Thus not bearer in the least.
Ask Rivest, he’ll tell ya the same. They really should have sold to PayPal before they got bought by eBay, but that’s another story.
Cheers,
RAH