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This is very unfortunate and surprising, goes to show that even after 14 years Flattr didn't find any market. I was hoping for bitcoin and crypto to show low u

This is very unfortunate and surprising, goes to show that even after 14 years Flattr didn't find any market. I was hoping for bitcoin and crypto to show low usage after around 15 years of no legitimate use cases other than speculation, ransomware and other scammy things, but Flattr's shutdown was a surprise. Flattr billed itself as the RSS of donations to really get rid of those ugly PayPal buttons on blogs, websites and the indie web, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Why is that? What was Flattr missing here?

worldsayshi 3y ago
Maybe one thing that held them back was that one of the founders was also founder of The Pirate Bay. Maybe potential big clients didn't want the association.
- teekert 3y ago
  Could also work for him, like SBF in his hoodie playing fortnite impressing bankers and such.
atq2119 3y ago
Flattr was trying to bootstrap a sort of two-sided market from scratch. They needed to get both hosts/"content providers" and clients/"users" to sign up. This is just a very, very hard problem, and if we're being honest about it, most of the success stories that come to mind got there through burning venture capital, which perhaps Flattr didn't have enough of? I don't think the idea is fundamentally flawed, it's just very difficult to do this kind of thing.
- hnbad 3y ago
  Well, they also made the mistake of initially trying to force both sides of the market to be one, i.e. you had to be a contributor (pay money to others) to collect money (let others pay you money). Also collecting money on behalf of others and then distributing it after sitting on it is an easy way to run afoul of anti money laundering laws in various jurisdictions. Also they did take investments which means they had to not only build a sustainable business but actually create a considerable ROI for their investors or risk them pulling the plug and cut their losses (which is presumably what happened given the lack of detail and "our wonderful journey" speak). So in other words they decided to play in hard mode (infinite growth) and then kneecapped themselves (to avoid "begging"). It's a miracle they survived this long. I had forgotten about them longer than I had used them.
chriswarbo 3y ago
I really liked Flattr, and used it for a while. The big problem was getting money in and out. Their idea of accumulating microtransactions ("Flattrs") internally for a month and dividing up a fixed amount was a really nice idea: both to reduce payment processor fees, and to remove any anxiety about clicking on a Flattr button (the same amount was spent per month, regardless of how many things were clicked, so go ahead). However, those monthly payments were also internal: transferred between from one user's "account balance" to another, and those balances had to be topped up manually via a rather laborious bank transfer (supposedly to keep fees down). I think there was an assumption that money would be moving around a lot inside the platform, e.g. blogger A gets Flattred for their post, and they Flattr developer B's application, whilst B Flattrs musician C's song, etc. I think reality had more of a creator/consumer dynamic, which made it more important to smoothly get money into the platform. I think they would have fared better by allowing users to be automatically charged each month (like Patreon, etc. who came later). The "account balance" idea could be simplified to withdraw-only, for tracking how much was received (i.e. 0 for almost all users); and perhaps allow that balance to be deducted from the monthly charge. It seems obvious in hindsight, and perhaps they did change to such a model; alas, I think their early buzz was squandered due to this friction.

worldsayshi 3y ago

Maybe one thing that held them back was that one of the founders was also founder of The Pirate Bay. Maybe potential big clients didn't want the association.

teekert 3y ago
Could also work for him, like SBF in his hoodie playing fortnite impressing bankers and such.

atq2119 3y ago

Flattr was trying to bootstrap a sort of two-sided market from scratch. They needed to get both hosts/"content providers" and clients/"users" to sign up. This is just a very, very hard problem, and if we're being honest about it, most of the success stories that come to mind got there through burning venture capital, which perhaps Flattr didn't have enough of? I don't think the idea is fundamentally flawed, it's just very difficult to do this kind of thing.

hnbad 3y ago
Well, they also made the mistake of initially trying to force both sides of the market to be one, i.e. you had to be a contributor (pay money to others) to collect money (let others pay you money). Also collecting money on behalf of others and then distributing it after sitting on it is an easy way to run afoul of anti money laundering laws in various jurisdictions. Also they did take investments which means they had to not only build a sustainable business but actually create a considerable ROI for their investors or risk them pulling the plug and cut their losses (which is presumably what happened given the lack of detail and "our wonderful journey" speak). So in other words they decided to play in hard mode (infinite growth) and then kneecapped themselves (to avoid "begging"). It's a miracle they survived this long. I had forgotten about them longer than I had used them.

chriswarbo 3y ago

I really liked Flattr, and used it for a while. The big problem was getting money in and out. Their idea of accumulating microtransactions ("Flattrs") internally for a month and dividing up a fixed amount was a really nice idea: both to reduce payment processor fees, and to remove any anxiety about clicking on a Flattr button (the same amount was spent per month, regardless of how many things were clicked, so go ahead). However, those monthly payments were also internal: transferred between from one user's "account balance" to another, and those balances had to be topped up manually via a rather laborious bank transfer (supposedly to keep fees down). I think there was an assumption that money would be moving around a lot inside the platform, e.g. blogger A gets Flattred for their post, and they Flattr developer B's application, whilst B Flattrs musician C's song, etc. I think reality had more of a creator/consumer dynamic, which made it more important to smoothly get money into the platform. I think they would have fared better by allowing users to be automatically charged each month (like Patreon, etc. who came later). The "account balance" idea could be simplified to withdraw-only, for tracking how much was received (i.e. 0 for almost all users); and perhaps allow that balance to be deducted from the monthly charge. It seems obvious in hindsight, and perhaps they did change to such a model; alas, I think their early buzz was squandered due to this friction.