I’m the first to admit that in many ways the internet is an extraordinary thing. But I do not understand why we don’t have one-click buying at this point in the game. By this I mean, you are on a web site and see a link to a song, movie, pdf, book, html template, podcast or whatever that you would like to buy. You should be able to click a “buy” link and immediately have the file start downloading to your hard drive. No logging in, no setting up a password, no nothing.
I certainly see issues with this idea; mainly that you could go to the bathroom and your little brother could come in and buy 3000 dollars worth of monkey porn. But I feel confident this could be worked out. It’s really kind of amazing that buying things is still so hard on the web.
The beauty of this, I feel, is that it would really empower the little guy (e.g. me.) If I could post a song or piece of writing and offer to sell it for, say 10 cents, I think I would probably get some buyers. Maybe not a lot, but enough to make it work. I’ve never bought a Kindle book in my life mainly because I think three bucks (a standard price) is still too much and I just don’t want to deal with the hassle of Amazon. Same goes for iTunes and the rest. There’s no need for these middle men (for a lot of items—for some there is .)