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Technology Stocks : WAVX Anyone? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Norman Klein who wrote (8126)	7/11/1999 7:18:00 PM
From: Arthur Radley	Respond to of 11417

Norman, This issue gets more confusing for me as I continue my research on the subject. From reading the long's postings here on SI and RagingBull, microtransactions will become the thing of the future and that WAVX will collect a fee ranging from whomever you believe from 10 to 50% of the transaction. What is so puzzling, as it relates to these projections of the future, is that in today's Houston Chronicle there is a article outlining the HUGE lawsuit between the nation's leading merchants and the VISA and MASTERCARD credit card organizations. The article outlines the history of how we make transactions...cash, then checks, next credit cards,next ATM cards, and now the offline debit card...leading to the gigantic lawsuit that I mentioned. For the consumer, offline debit cards---which are called "check cards"--work just like the online cards. For the merchant, there is a huge difference in money. At the grocery, if you use your offline/debit Visa, the supermarket pays 36 cents per transaction instead of the 13 cents for using the credit card. Next April, that goes to 40 cents. For other retailers, it is 1.04% of the transaction total, plus 6 cents. That will rise to 1.16%, plus 10 cents in April. What really steams retailers is they have no choice in the matter. If they want to accept Visa and Mastercard credit cards, they also must accept the offline debit cards. Big retailers, Wal-Mart, The Limited, Sears and others, charge that's a violation of antitrust laws. This lawsuit is being heared in Brooklyn with discovery ending next March 15, and a settlement conference scheduled for this December but with nothing expected to happen then. In the interim, the two credit card companies are spending millions to build offline card business. And apparently it's working. In just three years after their introduction, these offline cards had a billion transactions. For example...here in Houston the local Pulse EFT Association started offering offline debit services three years ago. In May, transactions were up 386% vs. the same month in 1998. The article concludes that unless the courts rule otherwise, the offline transactions will continue to grow. They are so profitable to Visa and MasterCard that it's worth the cost of advertising to build their popularity. If they lose, however, look for them to wind up paying billions of dollars in damages to the retailers.(End of recap of the article) I guess I'm confused by the assertion that this type transaction is something in the future and WAVX will benefit....it appears to me that VISA and MasterCard are already doing such and instead of the proposed (whomever you believe) transaction fees of 10-50%, they are willing to do it for less than 2% plus a small fixed fee. If these same merchants are willing to sue VISA and MasterCard....why would you expect them to pay WAVX as much as 50% and be happier? Just wondering on all of the above and getting more confused by the minute.

To: Norman Klein who wrote (8126)	7/11/1999 7:48:00 PM
From: Arthur Radley	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11417

Norman, The confusion continues.....if I understand, WAVX will allow an individual to preview and purchase music over the internet. The way I understand it they will put money in an account and will charge against their balance. Why would an individual want to send WAVX money when it appears that they can preview and purchase immediately from a company like Liquid Audio....http://www.liquidaudio.com/index.html LQID went public last week and needless to say the stock exploded in value from the IPO. To the best of my knowledge LQID doesn't use any technology from WAVX (at least they apparently haven't paid WAVX any revenue) and therefore my confusion continues.