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Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

danielmiessler.com

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Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#41

Post by steveklabnik »

mseebach wrote: post #38
gojomo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not knowing the exact amounts involved isn't a bug -- it's a feature. One major credible theory as to why previous micropayments systems failed is that even thinking about amounts added too much friction. A little like converting a previous voluntary activity to a paid activity, assigning any exact value to it causes a different decisionmaking-scheme to be applied -- which can then kill conversion. Who cares if every…

Well, there's a new friction point added -- each click slightly devalues all previous clicks that month. So now you're thinking "is this comic strip really as good as that recipe for strawberry pie I read last night?" I think Flattr might be on to something, but the friction isn't gone.

I disagree. The whole point is to ignore the amount; you're not thinking "is it worth as much?", you're thinking "Do I support this or not?"

Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#42

Post by Groxx »

steveklabnik wrote: post #40
Mark_Book wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's the incentive to set it up in the first place if you're not a content creator? Non content creators will mentally file it in their 'something virtuous to do when I have enough money' aka never_never. The content creators who end up being net donors will stop because their motivation was to make money not give it. This scheme and the optimism surrounding it sounds like a throwback to the internet bubble.

Supporting content authors. No, really, I'm serious. I made a comment below about this, you're thinking about the wrong metric. It doesn't matter if everyone does this, it matters if enough do to sustain whatever projects are using it. I myself have made money on a project through solely donations. Not a ton, but that project is also on hold for a minute. I think you're being overly cynical, and you think I'm being o…

The first time I activated my account was to send money to Vimcasts, which I'll probably do monthly now that it's set up. If I find nothing else flattrable (I'm picky with my money), they'll get a decent amount of money out of me, and I'll call it worthwhile.

Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#43

Post by gojomo »

jfarmer wrote: post #32
gojomo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not knowing the exact amounts involved isn't a bug -- it's a feature. One major credible theory as to why previous micropayments systems failed is that even thinking about amounts added too much friction. A little like converting a previous voluntary activity to a paid activity, assigning any exact value to it causes a different decisionmaking-scheme to be applied -- which can then kill conversion. Who cares if every…

It's not that thinking about amounts adds friction, it's that it changes the psychology. Your doctor friend might give you health advice for free, but wouldn't give it for $1. Although there is still money involved, it's not at the forefront, so I think people's psychological motivations are different when they click that button. The challenge will be convincing people to sign up in the first place.

The monetary amounts move the decision psychologically to a new category. This new category typically triggers economic weighing of costs and benefits. Such weighing takes more mental effort than the kind of hair-trigger evaluation a marginally-costless action (like a comment upvote or Flattr-click) does. That mental effort is transactional friction, a tax on seriously considering the transaction. At the margin, some people move on to the next shiny link instead of engaging in the weighing effort.

The motivation-crowd-out effect is related, as is the "don't insult me by putting a measly price on this" sentiment (which I think dominates your doctor example) -- but the theory about previous micropayments that I believe true is in fact talking about a decisionmaking friction.

Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#44

Post by gojomo »

Mark_Book wrote: post #26
steveklabnik wrote: post #20

I'm really all about Flattr. I wrote a blog post about it when it was announced. Big wins, as far as I'm concerned: * By being subscription based, it's 'set it and forget it.' * By introducing an upper limit, I don't have to worry about overspending my budget. * Flattr's model appeals to me: if I upvote fewer things, they mean more. Sounds about right. * One click donations are so much easier than trying to find and…

what's the incentive to set it up in the first place if you're not a content creator? Non content creators will mentally file it in their 'something virtuous to do when I have enough money' aka never_never. The content creators who end up being net donors will stop because their motivation was to make money not give it. This scheme and the optimism surrounding it sounds like a throwback to the internet bubble.

what's the incentive to set it up in the first place if you're not a content creator?

If/when there's enough uptake among the creators and the especially-charitable, other small nudges can be used to pressure others to sign up.

The obvious one I can think of is a clickthrough interstitial ad that Flattrers auto-skip (even without having tipped a site). Another would be revealing posts X hours/days early to Flattrers -- giving them a jump on trends and cross-linking.

Nothing the skilled couldn't get around with Firebug/etc, sure, but just enough to remind people they get better content faster if they contribute to creators.

Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#45

Post by tomjen3 »

There are plenty of problems with Flattr.

There is no way to charge for content - you have to rely on the user both having flattr installed and being willing to give you something.

As a content producer you have a direct monetary incentive to not link to or recommand others who also use flattr, as it lowers your cut. The service thus have to work against network effects - the more people who use the service, the worse of I am. At the same time there is no point in installing it on a website, so it has to fight network effects just to get accepted.

I doubt this will be around for long.

Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#46

Post by sz »

tomjen3 wrote: post #45

There are plenty of problems with Flattr. There is no way to charge for content - you have to rely on the user both having flattr installed and being willing to give you something. As a content producer you have a direct monetary incentive to not link to or recommand others who also use flattr, as it lowers your cut. The service thus have to work against network effects - the more people who use the service, the wors…

I think you missed the point with the first comment. It's a show of appreciation, not a charge for a service.

As for your second comment, I think you're mistaken. With the same reasoning, one might think that developers have no incentive to make it easy for users to stop using their application and migrate their data to a competitor's, but this is actually a good thing to do. Google in particular is known for this. I would personally be more inclined to send cake to a site that links me to other good content.

Flattr shouldn't be evaluated purely based on hard, rational economic principles; it's more of a social effect, so it's more complicated than that.

Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#47

Post by patio11 »

There still seems to be a huge barrier to adoption: getting people to sign up for a subscription to Flattr their first site. There are sites worth subscribing to see and there are sites which are not. The sites not worth a subscription have an incentive to freeload on the ecosystem by not working on the pre-sale of the Flattr account and instead just soaking up the one-click transactions. The sites that are worth a subscription will have to heavily presell the subscription, without their best single reason to subscribe (imposing a paywall) and with less efficiency than just setting up a paywall subscription system for themselves. Plus, instead of getting to keep 90% of the $6 a month that they'd get if they sold you on a subscription to their own site, they'll end up giving most of it away to freeloading sites.

See also Contenture, which was essentially identical to this business model.

There are also interesting problems in a world where everyone has a Flattr account, but we're not in that world and won't ever be.

Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#49

Post by steveklabnik »

Groxx wrote: post #42
steveklabnik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supporting content authors. No, really, I'm serious. I made a comment below about this, you're thinking about the wrong metric. It doesn't matter if everyone does this, it matters if enough do to sustain whatever projects are using it. I myself have made money on a project through solely donations. Not a ton, but that project is also on hold for a minute. I think you're being overly cynical, and you think I'm being o…

The first time I activated my account was to send money to Vimcasts, which I'll probably do monthly now that it's set up. If I find nothing else flattrable (I'm picky with my money), they'll get a decent amount of money out of me, and I'll call it worthwhile.

This is exactly what made me put money on my account, actually.

Re: Flattr, and Why It's Brilliant

#50

Post by steveklabnik »

mxavier wrote: post #25

I know I am oversimplifying this and it could be my inherent cheapness speaking but whenever I hear about a service where I need to pay someone to give other people my money, I back away slowly and then run. So perhaps I'm not targeted user, but I do think that if there are people who would use this, we'd probably seem more thought, time, and effort go into blog posts if people felt that they would receive something…

When you use a credit card, you pay to give someone else money. When you use PayPal, you pay to give someone else money.

Just because it's a hidden cost that the merchant rolls into the price doesn't mean it isn't true.

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