Scott McCloud, argues eloquently for the potential of micropayment schemes. In particular, he makes a case against Clay Shirky's clams that micropayments are dead.
My quick react is that the two are talking past each other. Shirky seems to be fighting against an automated, metering scheme, called micropayments, that enables content producers to maximize the value of their production. McCloud seems to be fighting for an explicit transaction scheme for low pricing, called micropayments, that enables content producers to recover some of the value of their production. Ed. this may need revision.
Same planet, different worlds.