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Flattr is closing down (2023)

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Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#41

Post by jmyeet »

TheFragenTaken wrote: post #31
amadeuspagel wrote: post #13

Flattr is the kind of idea that sounds great, that people love talking about - if only they could make a small donation to every website they liked - but that doesn't work because people are fundamentally too selfish. This is why ads are the only viable business model for a kind of "ephemeral website" - something you visit only briefly, derive some short knowledge or pleasure from until you follow a link somewhere el…

Twitch subscriptions and Patreon has shown, that if you bind a website/project to a creator, and you get benefits for donating/subscribing, that you can have a very viable business model. Both as a creator, and as a platform to facilitate it. Most websites, and indeed open source projects are pretty faceless, and require limited interaction with it's creator. I believe, if you somehow "solve" that problem first, peop…

Twitch did successfully push a subscription model for creators that allowed a lot of small creators to make an income. For anyone unfamiliar, Twitch subscriptions are $5-25/month (viewer's choice) and give access to emote, subscription badges in the chat and, perhaps most importantly, give you an ad free experience with that creator.

One cannot understate how important Amazon Prime (as Twitch Prime) is to the Twitch subscription ecosystem. IIRC roughly half of all Twitch subscriptions are Twitch Prime.

Twitch is aupser aggressive with ads. Youtube has skippable pre-roll ads. Twitch does not and might have 4+ pre-roll ads plus in-stream ads every 30-60 minutes. The ad density Twitch aims for is 4+ minutes per hour. But Twitch doesn't like the subscription model anymore. They've cut the revenue split. Previously many creators got a 70/30% split, now almost everyone gets a 50/50% split.

The big problem is that ad revenue scales in a way that subscriptions don't. Ad CPMs can go up, you can increase ad desnity easily (to a point) and ad revenue scales with view count in a way that subscriptions don't (eg a creator with 100K concurrent viewers won't have 100 times the subscriptions of someone with 1000 CVC).

You're seeing the same trend with streaming services. Netflix killed their basic tier and wants you to watch ads because it's more profitable than the subscription. Prime Video has thinly veiled a price hike by adding an extra ad-free monthly fee.

My point is that subscriptions, or any form of voluntary payment, is icnredibly hard to make work and even the most successful examples, like Twtich, require great effort and a supporting ecosystem like Amazon Prime.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#42

Post by bot347851834 »

TheFragenTaken wrote: post #31
amadeuspagel wrote: post #13

Flattr is the kind of idea that sounds great, that people love talking about - if only they could make a small donation to every website they liked - but that doesn't work because people are fundamentally too selfish. This is why ads are the only viable business model for a kind of "ephemeral website" - something you visit only briefly, derive some short knowledge or pleasure from until you follow a link somewhere el…

Twitch subscriptions and Patreon has shown, that if you bind a website/project to a creator, and you get benefits for donating/subscribing, that you can have a very viable business model. Both as a creator, and as a platform to facilitate it. Most websites, and indeed open source projects are pretty faceless, and require limited interaction with it's creator. I believe, if you somehow "solve" that problem first, peop…

I agree with your general point: people generally donate/buy/subscribe much more if there's a benefit tied to it.

On the other hand, I'd like to point out that Twitch is still losing money so I wouldn't really call their business model "very viable". I'd say it's viable for the content creators, because there's very little risk in trying out Twitch streaming, sure the chances of making it big are insanely small but the worst case scenario is losing time and a relatively small amount of money on a PC setup + microphone and camera.

Patreon is a different beast but there's a caveat here as well. I don't have numbers so this is just my PoV but I'd guess that the vast majority of creators that use Patreon aren't hosting, sharing or creating mainly on Patreon. They're called YouTubers, streamers, bloggers for a reason. Sure they may share BtS or some other kind of additional content but it's not their main platform. So while the Patreon business model works it's not really comparable to Twitch or any other platform where you actually start and continue to create content and also get paid by.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#43

Post by rcxdude »

geokon wrote: post #35
amadeuspagel wrote: post #13

Flattr is the kind of idea that sounds great, that people love talking about - if only they could make a small donation to every website they liked - but that doesn't work because people are fundamentally too selfish. This is why ads are the only viable business model for a kind of "ephemeral website" - something you visit only briefly, derive some short knowledge or pleasure from until you follow a link somewhere el…

I know HN froths at the mouth on this topic.. But Cryptominers/Hashcash are also an alternative. It's only been made non-viable due to the major players who depend on ad-supremacy making sure all browsers fingerprint and block them

It's a terrible option. Cryptomining in a browser is pure banditry: it's incredibly inefficient to the point the user loses way, way more than the site gains, and it provides basically nothing to crypto.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#44

Post by LadyCailin »

infecto wrote: post #16
amadeuspagel wrote: post #13

Flattr is the kind of idea that sounds great, that people love talking about - if only they could make a small donation to every website they liked - but that doesn't work because people are fundamentally too selfish. This is why ads are the only viable business model for a kind of "ephemeral website" - something you visit only briefly, derive some short knowledge or pleasure from until you follow a link somewhere el…

Sadly agree. I still wish when it came to news sites there was a micropayment option so I could read a single article for $0.10 or something along those lines.

There is, or anyways there was, but the model didn’t work. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blendle

It still exists, sort of, you can download the app, but it’s all in Dutch now, and doesn’t work on a pay-per-article model anymore, it’s unclear to me what their model is now, since I don’t speak Dutch. In any case, what you’re asking for exactly was a thing before, and failed, so I assume that’s why you can’t do it - it was tried, and people didn’t use it.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#45

Post by jmyeet »

Ygg2 wrote: post #39
TheFragenTaken wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitch subscriptions and Patreon has shown, that if you bind a website/project to a creator, and you get benefits for donating/subscribing, that you can have a very viable business model. Both as a creator, and as a platform to facilitate it. Most websites, and indeed open source projects are pretty faceless, and require limited interaction with it's creator. I believe, if you somehow "solve" that problem first, peop…

Isn't Twitch very much a net loss?

Twitch loses money because Amazon has decided to make Twitch lose money. Why? Because Amazon is charging themselves for the infrastructure Twitch uses (ie AWS).

It does that to justify cutting revenue splits (of subscriptions and ads) and increasing ad density. The minimum ad density now is generally 4 minutes per hour.

Example: say I'm Pottery Barn and I sell furniture in the US. I sell a table for $500. It costs $100 to make in China, $50 to ship to the US and $150 in store costs (eg utilities, staffing, rent, amortized capex, etc). You might say I've made $200 profit.

But let's say my corporate structure is to have 2 subsidiaries: PB Manufacturing and PB Retail. The first makes the table. The second manages the stores and sells the table.

If PBM charges PBR $150 for the table then PBM makes $50 in profit and PBR makes $150. If PBM charges $300 for the table then PBM makes $200 in profit and PBR breaks even.

This is what I mean when I say Twitch's profitability is a chosen narrative.

There are many reasons to do this. Tax is a big one. Maybe you pay less tax in China so you prefer to take profit there. Maybe you want to argue stores aren't profitable to resist demands for higher wages or higher rents.

The above is an example of "transfer pricing" or "profit shifting". What's the difference? Transfer pricing is illegal. Profit shifting isn't (within limits; it technically has to be "at arm's length" and other requirements).

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#46

Post by Zobat »

mstade wrote: post #2

I hate to be this guy, but 410 seems a more appropriate code: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/410

Kinda tempted to say 424 or 402 and you should always consider 418.

Actually 418 might be appropriate as the service was clearly not built to solve the problem as it exists today.

"The HTTP 418 I'm a teapot client error response code indicates that the server refuses to brew coffee because it is, permanently, a teapot."

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#47

Post by teekert »

thfuran wrote: post #33
teekert wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly disagree, I've put some BTC on my Podcasting 2.0 player (Podverse) and stream it to every creator that wants them (via the Bitcoin Lightning network).

And you think more than about 0% of web users do the same?

I was reacting to the generalization.

There are communities where the creators are well under way to becoming sustainable with this method. Granted, it's very early days.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#49

Post by snapcaster »

jmyeet wrote: post #45
Ygg2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Twitch very much a net loss?

Twitch loses money because Amazon has decided to make Twitch lose money. Why? Because Amazon is charging themselves for the infrastructure Twitch uses (ie AWS). It does that to justify cutting revenue splits (of subscriptions and ads) and increasing ad density. The minimum ad density now is generally 4 minutes per hour. Example: say I'm Pottery Barn and I sell furniture in the US. I sell a table for $500. It costs $1…

Can you expand on this? You're saying Twitch is only unprofitable in an accounting sense but would be a viable business if on its own? Saying their AWS costs are $0 seems like it would be even more "fake"

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#50

Post by gaiagraphia »

I currently "subscribe" to the Financial Times because I use Revolut Metal. I understand it has higher quality content than elsewhere, and enjoy reading articles from there now and again, but I never would've paid for it.

I wonder if 'bundling' is a way forward for content creators? Use x bank/isp/ridesharing app/delivery service, and you automatically get subscriptions to these creators.

Instead of governments spending £bil on their cultural budget, surely offering the same amount to companies in tax breaks if they support cultural projects would achieve a far greater impact?

Brief search showed £345m Uber Eats revenue in UK. If £3.45mil of that made its way to supporting 100 people who all had channels/sites inspiring families to eat healthier/more locally/promote local business,etc, surely this 'organic' approach could yield more than layers of civil service?

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