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Flattr is closing down (2023)

flattr.com

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Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#161

Post by JohnFen »

boplicity wrote: post #145

I don't see creators clamoring for micropayments. The reason is simple: It's not a good way to actually earn an income. Creators need stable and predictable support. Subscriptions work much better for them. It's a tried-and-true business model. What advocates of microtransactions don't see: It turns something that absolutely should not be a commodity (creative work), into a commodity. That's the fundamental failure h…

> Subscriptions work much better for them. It's a tried-and-true business model.

But it does exclude a portion of the potential customer base. Whether or not that matters to a business is a different issue, of course.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#163

Post by robertlagrant »

bawolff wrote: post #80
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitch subscriptions and Patreon has shown, that if you bind a website/project to a creator > Most websites, and indeed open source projects are pretty faceless, and require limited interaction with it's creator This is ultimately a polite way of saying that the "author" (which can be a content creator, a OSS maintainer) needs to establish a parasocial relationship, use a self-aggrandizing approach, and create dram…

Sometimes i feel like people make too much of the "parasocial" buzzword, as if its new. Entertainers have been doing the pass the hat thing for hundreds of years. It is not a new phenomenom. Historically, it has generally worked for entertainers, and i guess religion. I don't think there are historical paralells to open source really. Maybe it just doesn't work for that sort of thing.

Entertainers aren't pretending to be your friend, or lover, in exchange for money.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#164

Post by egypturnash »

notatoad wrote: post #153
boplicity wrote: post #145

I don't see creators clamoring for micropayments. The reason is simple: It's not a good way to actually earn an income. Creators need stable and predictable support. Subscriptions work much better for them. It's a tried-and-true business model. What advocates of microtransactions don't see: It turns something that absolutely should not be a commodity (creative work), into a commodity. That's the fundamental failure h…

>What advocates of microtransactions don't see: It turns something that absolutely should not be a commodity (creative work), into a commodity. as an advocate for microtransactions: yes, i see this. but i think you've got it backwards. nobody is "turning creative work into a commodity". it already is, and creators and marketplaces are both happy to treat it like one when they're selling their work. Creatives don't li…

Pff, I love Patreon and I feel like that is basically "micropayments that actually work". If you look at Scott McCloud's original proposal for micropayments ([1], parts 5/6), the only thing that's really not viable is the idea that every reader paying 25¢/mo would work - in practice, transaction fees mean that about $2/mo is the minimum viable payment to actually mean something, especially when you factor in that you are not going to get every reader to pay. Luckily it turns out that you can also get some readers to pay $5/$10/$50/mo, or even more.

(Factoring in inflation, that $2/mo now was about $1.12 back in 2000 when McCloud proposed the idea.)

1: http://scottmccloud.com/1-webcomics/icst/index.html

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#165

Post by ystvn »

sneak wrote: post #101
stl_fan wrote: post #89

Brave is building this functionality into the browser.

Unless you have some new information, I think that was like 6 Brave pivots ago, and isn’t the case any longer.

Where did you get that information from? I've never used that functionality myself, but haven't seen info indicating it got deprecated so I assumed it's still supported?

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#166

Post by lencastre »

pflenker wrote: post #155
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 had multiple discussions with German news projects around micropayments, and they list other, much simpler reasons why they don’t accept it: - depending on the payment method, the transaction cost is too high and eats up almost the full payment - the administrative overhead to maintain micro transactions is huge - it creates the incentive to create articles that sell well, e.g. clickbait, which contradicts the valu…

That sounds about right!

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#167

Post by lefixx »

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…

its not fair to call people shelfish when the only subscription option given to them is 10000x the value of an ad shown to them. Flattr was a good idea and if it was integrated to youtube I would have easily pay more than the ads would have.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#168

Post by ryanwhitney »

JohnFen wrote: post #161
boplicity wrote: post #145

I don't see creators clamoring for micropayments. The reason is simple: It's not a good way to actually earn an income. Creators need stable and predictable support. Subscriptions work much better for them. It's a tried-and-true business model. What advocates of microtransactions don't see: It turns something that absolutely should not be a commodity (creative work), into a commodity. That's the fundamental failure h…

> Subscriptions work much better for them. It's a tried-and-true business model. But it does exclude a portion of the potential customer base. Whether or not that matters to a business is a different issue, of course.

Looking at you, small town newspapers.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#169

Post by [deleted] »

egypturnash wrote: post #164
notatoad wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What advocates of microtransactions don't see: It turns something that absolutely should not be a commodity (creative work), into a commodity. as an advocate for microtransactions: yes, i see this. but i think you've got it backwards. nobody is "turning creative work into a commodity". it already is, and creators and marketplaces are both happy to treat it like one when they're selling their work. Creatives don't li…

Pff, I love Patreon and I feel like that is basically "micropayments that actually work". If you look at Scott McCloud's original proposal for micropayments ([1], parts 5/6), the only thing that's really not viable is the idea that every reader paying 25¢/mo would work - in practice, transaction fees mean that about $2/mo is the minimum viable payment to actually mean something, especially when you factor in that you…

[deleted]

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#170

Post by seydor »

boplicity wrote: post #145

I don't see creators clamoring for micropayments. The reason is simple: It's not a good way to actually earn an income. Creators need stable and predictable support. Subscriptions work much better for them. It's a tried-and-true business model. What advocates of microtransactions don't see: It turns something that absolutely should not be a commodity (creative work), into a commodity. That's the fundamental failure h…

> I don't see creators clamoring for micropayments.

How do you know that? I 'd use micropayments any day, but they are practically a nightmare to implement so we have to use third parties or subscriptions in order to justify the transaction costs.

It's not either-or, subscriptions have always existed, but the current (lack of) payment tech makes them more useful.

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