The Internet will not become a money machine until the banking industry figures out how to transfer money for free so you can charge USD 0. 005 (half a cent) for some simple service like, say, reading a newspaper article you have searched for. With today's payment system, the cost of the transfer of the funds completely dwarf the cost of the service paid for. . . . This situation, however, is what acutely prevents the Internet from taking off as a network for paid services.
George Eliot
Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.
