Nathan Myrhvold, a vice president at Microsoft sees
the necessity of ecash this way:
Right now, we're all street people on the information
highway; we can't protect our privacy and information;
we can't prove who we are; we can't buy anything.
---excerpt from a November 8th PRNewsire press release
Barring the irony of a corporate executive equating himself
to the homeless, Myrhvold isn't just advocating adding
tollbooths to his worn-out metaphor. Buyers want to protect
their goods and services on the internet and keep them from
those who can't afford them.