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Flattr, and Why It's Not: http://www.websnark.com/archives/2010/02/by-the-way-the.html http://www.websnark.com/archives/2010/02/by-the-way-the.html

jasonlotito 16y ago
That article is wrong. 25 cent micro transactions? Right. The reason MP's failed is not because MP are a bad idea, but because the implementation wasn't realistic. Flattr solves several problems, and does it realistically, and elegantly.
- Avshalom 16y ago
  Flattr creates a system where neither the giver nor the receiver knows how large a donation is until next month. That's not really a solution and it certainly isn't elegant.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Why is that a problem? Isn't the perception of a micropayment, such that it's an insignificant trifle? Why does the particular size of a trifle matter to the giver? Also, why is a month's delay universally bad? I can see that it would be bad to some people, but there are certainly a lot of other content-creators for whom this wouldn't be a significant problem at all. Actually, I would think that a month's delay would tend to encourage content with at least some staying power.
  - tiles 16y ago
    It's not a solution for micropayments, in the vein that Radiohead's pay-what-you-want model isn't a solution for the music industry selling CDs. But for casual content creators, the ability to buy a beer for a particularly well-written article or comic, this is excellent. It's a middle ground between ads and micropayments--better than ads, because you know people are rewarding you directly for enjoying your content, and you're not forcing advertising on them. Plus, I think it can be argued that the better your output--the more it's linked to--the more you'll get paid. At least that much is predictable.
  - mortenjorck 16y ago
    I agree with you that these aren't micropayments in the strictest sense. But your argument seems to be along the lines that apples are a poor dietary choice because they're not oranges. A content creator gets paid something (likely in variable quantity comparable to a micropayment) with very little thought required on the part of the payor: What's not to like here?
  - m_eiman 16y ago
    If you depend on it to pay your rent, you're going to need lots of people to click those buttons - and when lots of people do it you care less about how much each one gives and more about the averages. Flattr should publish "average pay per click" statistics, I suppose. And I do think that it's an elegant solution that reduces the number of actions required to contribute to things you enjoy to a single click. [edited to add] Another way to think about it is that the variable is not the percentage of visitors that are willing to pay X dollars for your content, instead it's the average payment of the visitors that are willing to pay anything for you content.
  - modeless 16y ago
    It's not a replacement for PayPal, it's a supplement to AdSense.
  - jasonlotito 16y ago
    You can't just say something and pretend like it's a problem. How is Flattr not a solution? Why is it important to know how much you are giving someone? As a receiver, how is this at all important?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
danielrm26 16y ago
I think it's being a bit pedantic to say that flattr is not doing micropayments because the author is not defining a flat fee that people must pay. I think any system that allows small amounts of money to flow to content creators can both be considered a win and be referred to as a micropayment as well.
user24 16y ago
There's a good point made in the comments in that article (MRL) - how do we know how much flattr take as their cut? The answer is made in their terms: "Revenue to Site Owners: Site Owners receive 90% of the contributed revenue (monies contributed by Flattr Users and distributed to the Flattr accounts of Site Owners). Flattr retains the remaining 10% as its fee. " I think that's just about reasonable. Certainly any more than that and I'd feel it was a little unjust.
gojomo 16y ago
Not knowing the exact amounts involved isn't a bug -- it's a feature. One major credible theory as to why previous micropayments systems failed is that even thinking about amounts added too much friction. A little like converting a previous voluntary activity to a paid activity, assigning any exact value to it causes a different decisionmaking-scheme to be applied -- which can then kill conversion. Who cares if every Flattr-click is valued differently, as long as overall, the right people are net-payers, the right people are net-receivers, and the magnitudes generally reward quality? While some activities (banking) require precise accounting, many other socially-valuable activities benefit most from loose accounting. This criticism ultimately fails because the author himself concludes: Will I put a Flattr icon on the site? Probably. There's no good reason not to. Indeed!
- jfarmer 16y ago
  It's not that thinking about amounts adds friction, it's that it changes the psychology. Your doctor friend might give you health advice for free, but wouldn't give it for $1. Although there is still money involved, it's not at the forefront, so I think people's psychological motivations are different when they click that button. The challenge will be convincing people to sign up in the first place.
  - gojomo 16y ago
    The monetary amounts move the decision psychologically to a new category. This new category typically triggers economic weighing of costs and benefits. Such weighing takes more mental effort than the kind of hair-trigger evaluation a marginally-costless action (like a comment upvote or Flattr-click) does. That mental effort is transactional friction, a tax on seriously considering the transaction. At the margin, some people move on to the next shiny link instead of engaging in the weighing effort. The motivation-crowd-out effect is related, as is the "don't insult me by putting a measly price on this" sentiment (which I think dominates your doctor example) -- but the theory about previous micropayments that I believe true is in fact talking about a decisionmaking friction.
- mseebach 16y ago
  Well, there's a new friction point added -- each click slightly devalues all previous clicks that month. So now you're thinking "is this comic strip really as good as that recipe for strawberry pie I read last night?" I think Flattr might be on to something, but the friction isn't gone.

jasonlotito 16y ago

That article is wrong. 25 cent micro transactions? Right. The reason MP's failed is not because MP are a bad idea, but because the implementation wasn't realistic. Flattr solves several problems, and does it realistically, and elegantly.

Avshalom 16y ago
Flattr creates a system where neither the giver nor the receiver knows how large a donation is until next month. That's not really a solution and it certainly isn't elegant.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  Why is that a problem? Isn't the perception of a micropayment, such that it's an insignificant trifle? Why does the particular size of a trifle matter to the giver? Also, why is a month's delay universally bad? I can see that it would be bad to some people, but there are certainly a lot of other content-creators for whom this wouldn't be a significant problem at all. Actually, I would think that a month's delay would tend to encourage content with at least some staying power.
- tiles 16y ago
  It's not a solution for micropayments, in the vein that Radiohead's pay-what-you-want model isn't a solution for the music industry selling CDs. But for casual content creators, the ability to buy a beer for a particularly well-written article or comic, this is excellent. It's a middle ground between ads and micropayments--better than ads, because you know people are rewarding you directly for enjoying your content, and you're not forcing advertising on them. Plus, I think it can be argued that the better your output--the more it's linked to--the more you'll get paid. At least that much is predictable.
- mortenjorck 16y ago
  I agree with you that these aren't micropayments in the strictest sense. But your argument seems to be along the lines that apples are a poor dietary choice because they're not oranges. A content creator gets paid something (likely in variable quantity comparable to a micropayment) with very little thought required on the part of the payor: What's not to like here?
- m_eiman 16y ago
  If you depend on it to pay your rent, you're going to need lots of people to click those buttons - and when lots of people do it you care less about how much each one gives and more about the averages. Flattr should publish "average pay per click" statistics, I suppose. And I do think that it's an elegant solution that reduces the number of actions required to contribute to things you enjoy to a single click. [edited to add] Another way to think about it is that the variable is not the percentage of visitors that are willing to pay X dollars for your content, instead it's the average payment of the visitors that are willing to pay anything for you content.
- modeless 16y ago
  It's not a replacement for PayPal, it's a supplement to AdSense.
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  You can't just say something and pretend like it's a problem. How is Flattr not a solution? Why is it important to know how much you are giving someone? As a receiver, how is this at all important?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

danielrm26 16y ago

I think it's being a bit pedantic to say that flattr is not doing micropayments because the author is not defining a flat fee that people must pay. I think any system that allows small amounts of money to flow to content creators can both be considered a win and be referred to as a micropayment as well.

user24 16y ago

There's a good point made in the comments in that article (MRL) - how do we know how much flattr take as their cut? The answer is made in their terms: "Revenue to Site Owners: Site Owners receive 90% of the contributed revenue (monies contributed by Flattr Users and distributed to the Flattr accounts of Site Owners). Flattr retains the remaining 10% as its fee. " I think that's just about reasonable. Certainly any more than that and I'd feel it was a little unjust.

gojomo 16y ago

Not knowing the exact amounts involved isn't a bug -- it's a feature. One major credible theory as to why previous micropayments systems failed is that even thinking about amounts added too much friction. A little like converting a previous voluntary activity to a paid activity, assigning any exact value to it causes a different decisionmaking-scheme to be applied -- which can then kill conversion. Who cares if every Flattr-click is valued differently, as long as overall, the right people are net-payers, the right people are net-receivers, and the magnitudes generally reward quality? While some activities (banking) require precise accounting, many other socially-valuable activities benefit most from loose accounting. This criticism ultimately fails because the author himself concludes: Will I put a Flattr icon on the site? Probably. There's no good reason not to. Indeed!

jfarmer 16y ago
It's not that thinking about amounts adds friction, it's that it changes the psychology. Your doctor friend might give you health advice for free, but wouldn't give it for $1. Although there is still money involved, it's not at the forefront, so I think people's psychological motivations are different when they click that button. The challenge will be convincing people to sign up in the first place.
- gojomo 16y ago
  The monetary amounts move the decision psychologically to a new category. This new category typically triggers economic weighing of costs and benefits. Such weighing takes more mental effort than the kind of hair-trigger evaluation a marginally-costless action (like a comment upvote or Flattr-click) does. That mental effort is transactional friction, a tax on seriously considering the transaction. At the margin, some people move on to the next shiny link instead of engaging in the weighing effort. The motivation-crowd-out effect is related, as is the "don't insult me by putting a measly price on this" sentiment (which I think dominates your doctor example) -- but the theory about previous micropayments that I believe true is in fact talking about a decisionmaking friction.
mseebach 16y ago
Well, there's a new friction point added -- each click slightly devalues all previous clicks that month. So now you're thinking "is this comic strip really as good as that recipe for strawberry pie I read last night?" I think Flattr might be on to something, but the friction isn't gone.