another day another dime

[solarbird]

So there’s this social micropayments system called Flattr. Members sign up, pay a little a month (€2), then can, on sites with a Flattr button, click on that button. The click is logged. At the end of the month, the €2 is divided across all the buttons you clicked on, less 10% which goes to Flattr, which is how they make money. Wikipedia says it’s been around since 2010 but only went really public in 2011.

Have you even ever heard of this thing before, or seen a Flattr button? I mean, it’s the kind of thing that’d be cool, if people used it, but I really doubt people would. Certainly my experiences with online revenue make it seem unlikely – I’ll make more money at a single good show than I have lifetime online. (That’s why I’ve been focused on YouTube lately – YouTube is far more plays per day than Bandcamp, CD Baby, or iTunes or any of that, and since I want shows, well…)

So have you even heard of this? Do you use it? Do you know anybody who does? Now that you know about it, would you use it?

Mirrored from Crime and the Blog of Evil. Come listen to our music!

Comments

[attie]

It's really popular among the people who are also very active on Google+...

Okay, hold the snark: I follow a bunch of German "internet activist" blogs that eagerly jumped on the Flattr train when its initial buzz was going, and many of those actually posted statistics on how much they get (radical transparency is one of their agenda points after all!) These are pretty big blogs in Germany and also have a public heavily skewed towards technology enthousiasts. A quick googling gives me some old figures from 2010, where a very big multi-author blog made around 750€, a popular single-author blog 250€, and a less popular single-author blog 30€. Also, carta.info has monthly "flattr charts", and has observed that lately flattring has shifted very much in favor of podcasts.

Now, I haven't hung around other techie crowds, or other German crowds, so I can't tell if it's only Germans, only techies, or only German techies that use flattr, or if there are other communities where it's popular. Coincidentally (or not), these guys are also the only people I know who really use G+.

So far, I've been too lazy to get a flattr account, and also I don't really feel like giving money to that crowd. (Too mansplainy, no cookies for you.) Now, if for instance the AO3 were to add flattr buttons... (I know, I know, what am I thinking, money for fanfic? HERESY!)

[solarbird]

For whatever it might be worth, nobody has piped up on the Google+ band page about it - yet, anyway.