MicroStream - Pay-per-second content streaming with zero fees

Built this during the Qubic hackathon: actual working micropayments. Pay 0.001 QUBIC per second of content, watch a live counter tick, get instant refunds for unused balance.

Why this exists:

Micropayments have been "coming soon" for 15 years but gas fees always made them impossible. Sending $0.001 on Ethereum costs $5 in fees. Qubic has zero transaction fees, so I wanted to see if micropayments could actually work in practice.

What it does:

Deposit QUBIC, watch content, pay exactly for what you consume (down to the second)
Live counter shows seconds watched, amount paid, remaining balance
Creators get paid instantly with zero platform fees
Works in demo mode so you can test without touching blockchain

The use cases I'm thinking about:

Educational content: pay $0.30 for 10 min instead of $50/month subscriptions
API access: pay per call, no monthly commitments
Live streaming: watch 5 min, pay for 5 min
Premium features: only pay when you actually use them

What I'm curious about:

Is this solving a real problem or just a neat tech demo? What would you actually use this for?

Full stack: claude-code, Qubic smart contract (C++), Node.js backend, vanilla JS frontend. Open source, working demo