The following was written about 2000. It is now 2006 and the links are broken. I leave it here on the off chance someone will find clues to seek old ideas which should be resurrected.
I try here to define a category of payment schemes and characterize certain existing services as to whether they belong to that category.

The defining properties are that the transaction cost is very low and that the payee knows that he has been paid within a few seconds.

In particular I do not require non repudiation under this category. The idea is not to put more cash into the system than you would greatly mind losing. It is a reputation system for small amounts of money.

I will list my own entry first for that is the source of my interest: Easy Money

I just went thru the eCash consumer demo. It certainly seems simple and quick. The case at hand was paying for something to be shipped and thus there is no reason to believe that the payee learns in seconds that he has been paid.

NetBill is an academic scheme that is being tested. It is an ingenious scheme with an escrow flavor. It is a borderline member of our category.