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Flattr is closing down (2023)

flattr.com

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Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#201

Post by JoshTriplett »

prmoustache wrote: post #58
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 see a lot of people either proposing using paypal, patreon or ko-fi to receive donations. How did flattr differ from these services?

At least in theory, the flattr model was "pay a fixed amount you can afford, it automatically gets divided among the sites you flattr".

That's a model that helps avoid subscription fatigue. Put $10 or $20 or $100 into a pool, and at the end of the month you know you'll spend exactly that much, no matter how many sites you flattr.

I would love to have seen that model succeed.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#202

Post by JoshTriplett »

geokon wrote: post #65
rcxdude wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is it banditry.. you can opt out of going to the website. I think you're not looking at the alternative objectively.. Ads are pure brain rot that just make society worse while providing virtually nothing useful to "the user"

The alternative to ads isn't cryptominers. The alternative is adblockers, which also block cryptominers and other unwanted malware.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#203

Post by JoshTriplett »

geokon wrote: post #66
scrollaway wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also a huge waste of energy at a time when the planet is on fire.

it's got some downsides - but so does the alternative. Have you considered the harmful effects of advertisement on society? I think people's cellphone warming up a bit is a smaller price to pay

That's a false dichotomy: cryptominers are not the only alternative to ads.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#204

Post by spiderice »

WheatMillington wrote: post #195
freediver wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to push back on this. It is not that people are too selfish, but that there is not much content truly worth paying for. This is because ads proliferated not just creation of giant amounts of content but they also incentivize quantity over quality. Second thing that is holding this back is no seamless way to send a payment from your browser to the website (owner). This has to be native in the browser, user-ce…

>It is not that people are too selfish, but that there is not much content truly worth paying for. Go spend some time on /r/Youtube. If there is any content worth paying for on this internet, it's the virtually limitless reservoir of incredible content across youtube, and for a relatively low fee you can make ads disappear. But the anti-Google sentiment is so strong that the selfish freeloaders will do anything in th…

Youtube Premium subscriber here. It's my favorite "streaming" service that I pay for. I'd cancel Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, etc.. long before I ever canceled YT Premium.

With that being said, I don't think your comment is fair. The anti-Google sentiment is justified. They violate your privacy. Not wanting to support them by signing up for their paid service isn't being a "selfish freeloader".

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#205

Post by infecto »

itsoktocry wrote: post #103
infecto wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> so I could read a single article for $0.10 or something along those lines. But there is "something along those lines"; it's called becoming a paid subscriber. When you amortize the expense across every article, you may even be getting a deal! The fact that the example expense you'd be willing to incur to read content you actually enjoy is ten cents speaks to why this model won't work.

Don’t get hung up on the price I listed, it’s just an example which is dependent on publication and article length/content.

Your argument is pretty weak too. Of course I could subscribe but obviously I don’t for any number of reasons. I am saying I wish I could pay on a per article price. Sorry for wanting to pay for the content I consume.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#206

Post by blargey »

robertlagrant wrote: post #163
bawolff wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. Normal Patreons and such are run by entertainers/craftspeople who aren't pretending to be your friend, or lover.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#207

Post by gameman144 »

WheatMillington wrote: post #194
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. That's the fundamental failure here, and it's a big one. Does the subscription model not do exactly this?

I think one distinction is that subscriptions often denote "I like your work, keep doing that", whereas one-off payments denote "I liked this one thing, I'll pay you for it"

The former can be assumed to be a lot more sustainable than the second.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#208

Post by Legend2440 »

onli wrote: post #7

Was Flattr big in the US? It was a "future big thing" in my part of Europe for a while, driven by discussions in Blogs and experiments with using it for bigger projects, iirc. It seemed like it never achieved much success of leaving that bubble though. After a while I never noticed it again. I thought about it recently when noticing that a gaming journalist used Steady for his incomes, and Patreon would be the other…

It was never big. I saw a handful of open source projects and the like use it a very long time ago. But it was never a considerable source of income for them.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#209

Post by tristor »

I used Flattr for awhile but I eventually stopped, because it had low discoverability of where the money was going and it was a recurring charge structure (as I recall), but sometimes I just wanted to spiff somebody one time. It's an interesting idea, but it never really worked out, and I also didn't heavily utilize it while I was active because few creators had a Flattr profile and the other mechanisms I was too lazy to use. A lot of folks here talk about selfishness being the killer, but the reality is that it didn't have a strong UX.

Re: Flattr is closing down (2023)

#210

Post by nicolas_17 »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #83
Ygg2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Twitch very much a net loss?

Yes and no. They jump around the profit-point. They made some profit in 2019 or so, but the pandemia peaked them, not just in views and income, but also costs. The thing is, Twitch's business-model is very frail. A streamer with too many viewers can cost them more money than it brings them money. Similar, are there millions of small streamers who barely make them a dollar. And then are there also too many side-costs,…

You do know Amazon owns Twitch? I'm sure they aren't using normal AWS billing...
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