The relationship also generates renewals, thereby continuing the income stream in future years. Compared to subscriptions, selling individual items on a one-shot basis is a secondary concern. Micropayments are useful as a way to draw in new customers and to serve casual customers who will not pay for subscriptions, but it's unlikely to be preferable to subscriptions. Advertising, too, has been an extremely successful alternative for funding the delivery of small digital goods. Stock quotes and news stories, in particular, are easily available on the web free of direct charge.
Web searches are also free, though they cost the search companies quite a lot of money to provide.
Instead of a few cents for each transaction, the users pay attention. That attention may be far more valuable to the merchant and his advertisers than the few cents the merchant might collect. In this respect, the web is similar to broadcast television. As described, none of these has achieved any large volume. An interesting reversal seems to have occurred, however.