As the debate over charging for content heats up, Google, the very business that has bore the majority of the blame for profiting from the demise of newspapers, has quietly hinted that it intends to launch a micro-payment system, basically, to profit from coming up with the solution.

If it works this would be a wickedly brilliant move from Google. Its business thrives on solving problems like this one, in a simple and effective way.  I’ve been very vocal in laughing off suggestions of the newspaper industry developing its own micro-payment system. Unlike Google, their business model is not known for innovation or effective problem solving, quite the opposite, and I could never see them all agreeing on a system, let alone implementing it in a way that didn’t alienate their readers.

But if anyone can pull this off, it would be Google. They are the only ones who have significant scale, except maybe Apple, whose app store is itself the leading default content micro-payments system on the web right now.

Like Apple does with the app store, Google plans to take a 30% clip of the micro-payments on the way through. I wonder how Rupert feels knowing that Google again has the potential to position itself between the user and his properties and take a clip on the way through?

In the longer term, printed newspapers are dead and eventually everything will move digital.  Consider then, that when it does, Google will control the flow of traffic to newspaper websites via search and also the flow of revenue via micro-payments and advertising.  They basically have the industry by the balls. The situation is akin to the Ukraine and Russia disputing taxes on the gas traveling through Ukrainian pipelines on the way to heating European homes. If Rupert Murdoch is Putin in this analogy then I would expect a similarly aggressive response.

“Rupert, just push that tiny red button and we’ll blow Google to smithereens..!”