That's what I don't get. Publishers have all the incentive to get behind a solution like this, but somehow I never see a "send a tip" or Flattr button anywhere

That's what I don't get. Publishers have all the incentive to get behind a solution like this, but somehow I never see a "send a tip" or Flattr button anywhere (maybe I'm not looking?). I just wish a bunch of well-known publishers would get together and agree on _one_ solution that they'd all add to their site. It's just a matter of adding a widget on their article pages. They already have large readership. It could kick things off and maybe get over that network effect cold-start issue. They could add a nice bounty like "make a first payment and don't see ads on our site for a month". Or similar. A solution like this could be a good candidate because it's neutral. With Flattr or similar you're encouraging that particular middleman. However I think to inspire confidence in publishers they'd need to prove that this solution will have strong support for years to come (which is always unsure with open source projects). EDIT: To be clear I'm mostly thinking of micropayments to news sites. The strategy is less clear when talking about electronic commerce in general.