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> How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr Not enough tractio

> How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr Not enough traction? Someone has to start using it, people will adapt...

kiba 10y ago
Patreon seems to be a better model, to be honest. It's about nine million dollars a month in total pledge, which meant over one hundred million in revenue per year if it never grows beyond that.
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  I prefer Flattr's model to Patreon, as it lets me spread donations around without much commitment, e.g. when googling for error messages and finding helpful blog posts. A Flattr<->Patreon bridge might be a nice idea, so creators using one can receive donations from the other. Unfortunately Flattr's mechanisms for transfering money were overly complicated when I used to use it: to keep down third-party transfer fees, each Flattr account maintained its own balance, and could be manually topped up or withdrawn from in bulk using a relatively obscure payment gateway. This obscurity and manual intervention discouraged topping up, and made it very easy to forget. I also seem to remember those receiving Flattrs being unable to withdraw anything until they reached a certain minimum balance, which was difficult to achieve for a relatively unknown network of micropayments. I'd probably start using it again, if I could forget about my "Flattr balance" and just have it automatically top-up by $X from my bank account via some common gateway, whenever there's not enough to cover the end-of-month payment; I could then manage it in the same way as my existing charity donations. EDIT: The above was based on my experience in Flattr's first few years of existence. I've just logged in and there now seem to be many more payment methods, and an auto-topup option :)
- staticautomatic 10y ago
  Gross revenue, that is, before the content creators are paid out.
  - kiba 10y ago
    Pretty sure the statistic on graphtreon excludes revenues paid to the platform. When I said hundred million, I really meant hundred million paid to creators, not with the cut included.
- nradov 10y ago
  I doubt that would really count as "revenue" under GAAP.
  - grzm 10y ago
    Would you elaborate?
    - nradov 10y ago
      IANAA but generally if they're just processing payments then GAAP revenue would only be the difference between cash in and what they immediately pay out. Think of it in terms of facilitating a transaction and taking a cut of what flows through their hands.
      - grzm 10y ago
        Ah. I see what you mean. Thanks for the clarification.
jerf 10y ago
That use case seems to have been entirely superceded by Patreon. The fact that it isn't quite identical, well, that's part of why it has been superceded by Patreon. But both Flattr and Patreon miss the relatively involuntary nature of ad networks. Certain things can not count on being supported by eager contributors, and need to more-or-less force themselves in to somehow earn revenue. I'm not all that perturbed by saying "then perhaps they shouldn't exist", but I don't have to take a survey to guess I'm in the very minority view on that. To give a positive example of that where it's not just "clickbait" but is actually a useful thing: My wife and I get a lot of recipes off the internet. But of the several dozen she's pinned on Pinterest, I'd say I've only seen one or two sites repeated. Mostly we're wandering around hither and yon, not showing any site loyalty. If my use case is the common one, then patronage isn't really a solution. (Including Flattr, which to a first approximation, zero of the people visiting those recipe sites have ever heard of, and low single digits of them would use it if they had.) But ads aren't necessarily working terribly well either; I've seen some recipes so laden down with ads that I got tired of waiting for the recipe to stop jumping around on my phone as it loaded Yet Another Ad into the middle of the text, and went and got my computer, where uMatrix nuked the ads without even trying.
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  I'm not 100% sure if uMatrix runs on Firefox for Android, but I do know that uBlock Origin does, including in advanced mode.
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  > Mostly we're wandering around hither and yon, not showing any site loyalty. I agree with your main point, but to clarify: Flattr was specifically designed for this sort of one-off usage. Clicking a Flattr button doesn't subscribe to anything, it just adds that person/site to a list on your Flattr account. At the end of the month, your money is divided evenly between those on the list, then the list is cleared. You can set up subscriptions on Flattr, which sounds more like Patreon's model, but the default mode is for one-off drive-by donations. Flattr subscriptions are just an automated way to click a Flattr button once a month.
  - 10y ago
gravyboat 10y ago
I've been using it for a while now and no one contributes to it. I've worked on multiple open source projects, some with a lot of visibility, write a good amount of free content, and the most you'll ever get is 'thanks'. Unless you fall into specific groups your chances of making money from systems like Flattr are basically 0.

kiba 10y ago

Patreon seems to be a better model, to be honest. It's about nine million dollars a month in total pledge, which meant over one hundred million in revenue per year if it never grows beyond that.

chriswarbo 10y ago
I prefer Flattr's model to Patreon, as it lets me spread donations around without much commitment, e.g. when googling for error messages and finding helpful blog posts. A Flattr<->Patreon bridge might be a nice idea, so creators using one can receive donations from the other. Unfortunately Flattr's mechanisms for transfering money were overly complicated when I used to use it: to keep down third-party transfer fees, each Flattr account maintained its own balance, and could be manually topped up or withdrawn from in bulk using a relatively obscure payment gateway. This obscurity and manual intervention discouraged topping up, and made it very easy to forget. I also seem to remember those receiving Flattrs being unable to withdraw anything until they reached a certain minimum balance, which was difficult to achieve for a relatively unknown network of micropayments. I'd probably start using it again, if I could forget about my "Flattr balance" and just have it automatically top-up by $X from my bank account via some common gateway, whenever there's not enough to cover the end-of-month payment; I could then manage it in the same way as my existing charity donations. EDIT: The above was based on my experience in Flattr's first few years of existence. I've just logged in and there now seem to be many more payment methods, and an auto-topup option :)
staticautomatic 10y ago
Gross revenue, that is, before the content creators are paid out.
- kiba 10y ago
  Pretty sure the statistic on graphtreon excludes revenues paid to the platform. When I said hundred million, I really meant hundred million paid to creators, not with the cut included.
nradov 10y ago
I doubt that would really count as "revenue" under GAAP.
- grzm 10y ago
  Would you elaborate?
  - nradov 10y ago
    IANAA but generally if they're just processing payments then GAAP revenue would only be the difference between cash in and what they immediately pay out. Think of it in terms of facilitating a transaction and taking a cut of what flows through their hands.
    - grzm 10y ago
      Ah. I see what you mean. Thanks for the clarification.

jerf 10y ago

That use case seems to have been entirely superceded by Patreon. The fact that it isn't quite identical, well, that's part of why it has been superceded by Patreon. But both Flattr and Patreon miss the relatively involuntary nature of ad networks. Certain things can not count on being supported by eager contributors, and need to more-or-less force themselves in to somehow earn revenue. I'm not all that perturbed by saying "then perhaps they shouldn't exist", but I don't have to take a survey to guess I'm in the very minority view on that. To give a positive example of that where it's not just "clickbait" but is actually a useful thing: My wife and I get a lot of recipes off the internet. But of the several dozen she's pinned on Pinterest, I'd say I've only seen one or two sites repeated. Mostly we're wandering around hither and yon, not showing any site loyalty. If my use case is the common one, then patronage isn't really a solution. (Including Flattr, which to a first approximation, zero of the people visiting those recipe sites have ever heard of, and low single digits of them would use it if they had.) But ads aren't necessarily working terribly well either; I've seen some recipes so laden down with ads that I got tired of waiting for the recipe to stop jumping around on my phone as it loaded Yet Another Ad into the middle of the text, and went and got my computer, where uMatrix nuked the ads without even trying.

NoGravitas 10y ago
I'm not 100% sure if uMatrix runs on Firefox for Android, but I do know that uBlock Origin does, including in advanced mode.
chriswarbo 10y ago
> Mostly we're wandering around hither and yon, not showing any site loyalty. I agree with your main point, but to clarify: Flattr was specifically designed for this sort of one-off usage. Clicking a Flattr button doesn't subscribe to anything, it just adds that person/site to a list on your Flattr account. At the end of the month, your money is divided evenly between those on the list, then the list is cleared. You can set up subscriptions on Flattr, which sounds more like Patreon's model, but the default mode is for one-off drive-by donations. Flattr subscriptions are just an automated way to click a Flattr button once a month.
- 10y ago

gravyboat 10y ago

I've been using it for a while now and no one contributes to it. I've worked on multiple open source projects, some with a lot of visibility, write a good amount of free content, and the most you'll ever get is 'thanks'. Unless you fall into specific groups your chances of making money from systems like Flattr are basically 0.