Flattr 2.0 launches to the public

I would like to point out two things about Flattr:<p>- Whenever other people send you money, Flattr keeps 10% from that money.<p>- When you make money with Flattr, Flattr expects you to give this money back to other authors you like. And they will send them back to other authors. As the money are sent back and forth, and 10% are removed at each step, Flattr is the only one actually making any money.

I was big fan of original Flattr, that&#x27;s why i was excited for 2.0 too. However that &quot;extension&quot; setup is something that still keeps me in evaluation phase, rather than 100% in. I inspected extension (not 100% of it, but a bit of code, storage, xhr calls). Some findings:<p>* They use whitelist (visible in source) of sites, thus they do not record activity on all sites, but just the ones in whitelist.<p>* You can individually block sites from being tracked even if they are in whitelist (by click on the icon). This gets respected.<p>* They store a lot of data &quot;locally&quot;. Things like timestamps, cursor activity, time spent on the page etc. This does not get sent to flattr, but sits in local storage.<p>* Once &quot;site&#x2F;page&quot; qualifies for a flattr, path with title is sent to flattr. No other information (i.e. - no query string, no mouse activity etc.).<p>* They record things, that they should blacklist. For example - common cms paths (wp-admin&#x2F;<i>) is reported, but should not be. In some sites they report paths that should be blacklisted (like in twitter they report &#x2F;settings&#x2F;</i> ).<p>* In youtube.com icon for extension looks disabled (like nothing is being recorded), however they still store data in local db (browsing history, videos viewed). Nothing is sent to flattr though. This should be updated. Either show in icon that you record data, or do not record anything.<p>All in all extension does not look malicious at the moment. But it&#x27;s not perfect either. And i&#x27;m not sure that there will be a point where i will feel 100% confident with it. Most likely i will try to use it, but will continue to inspect regularly to see if its still solid.<p>Edited: fixed some typos.

Some things to consider about Flattr: you have to install a web browser extension; the extension requires access to your full browsing history; it was bought by the parent company of Adblock Plus, Eyeo.

&gt; <i>Install the desktop extension</i><p>If they are expecting me to _install_ something on my precious machine, they&#x27;d better be damn explicit what it is and what _exactly_ it does. I can see bits about this and that spread across their blog posts, but nothing cohesive and nothing on the home page itself.<p>All in all though - they appear to be wanting a real-time access to the browsing activity and its full history. That&#x27;s, of course, an absolute NO regardless of how good the intentions are.

My thoughts when reading that (in order):<p>- With as many pivots as Flattr had, it should be called Flattr 5.0 (after reading the headline)<p>- Hmm, actually looks really interesting now, and they seem to have tought about the major pitfalls (after reading the blog post)<p>- Nope, not gonna touch that! (after finding out that flatter was acquired by the makers of Adblock Plus)<p>(Oh boy have I made many dismissive comments today...)

I remember Flattr from a long time ago, when some German podcasters made a push for it. Thought it was a great idea at that time. If I remember correctly, it was a small square button with the number of tippers below it and upon click one&#x27;s monthly spending balance would in part go to the creator.<p>A few months ago I stumbled upon Flattr again (thought it was dead till that day). Couldn&#x27;t log in with my old credentials, couldn&#x27;t sign up for new ones, but was told that I can put myself on the waiting list for &quot;Flattr 2&quot;.<p>Now that this Flattr 2 thing has launched I can&#x27;t help but ask myself <i>how badly you can fuck up a product that once had an enthusiastic user base</i>. Not only that they told existing users to sign up for their product again, the product now is much more cumbersome (browser extension required) and costly because of the fees.<p>I strongly believe that there&#x27;s a need for social micropayments done right, but I don&#x27;t see myself ever making a deposit to Flattr. Someone should simply clone Flattr 1 and keep the fees as low as possible. It was a good and much needed product.

I used to be quite excited about Flattr. The ideology they stand for is what makes them exciting, so I don&#x27;t want to judge them by their brand, but still I can&#x27;t help but feel that their communication and product design is honestly terrible.<p>They communicated almost nothing for around 3 years, and now they&#x27;re back to relaunch. I just don&#x27;t feel very confident about their organization.

I was initially very excited to see this post. I have always believed that flattr&#x27;s subscription&#x2F;contribution model could be so important for supporting creatives and grassroots efforts.<p>So I&#x27;m disappointed that it seems I can&#x27;t signup and contribute without installing a browser plugin that can read and change all my browser data and browser history... nope.<p>Flattr team, please fix that and I&#x27;ll consider giving you another chance.<p>P.S. I&#x27;ve been keeping my eye open for someone trying to implement this subscription&#x2F;contribution model using blockchain. I haven&#x27;t been able to find anything -- anyone seen that yet?

Somebody correct me if I&#x27;m wrong but I thought using Flattr is not as easy on mobile phones. It requires using a separate browser app. (E.g. the Adblock browser app for Android). Since ~99% of smartphone users won&#x27;t using anything but the default iPhone Safari or Android Chrome browser, this leaves out most audiences[1] that Flattr can&#x27;t reach.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q=majority+browse+web+with+mobile+phones" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q=majority+browse+web+with+mob...</a>

I&#x27;d rather make few, but meaningful contributions to creators with a system like Patreon or Kickstarter, than make many &quot;micro&quot;, meaningless payments without a clue where my money is going.<p>This is failed from the get go. The whole idea that the program is going to determine where your attention goes, and how that relates to your contributions. Maybe I read a blog I contribute to, and it takes a lot of time, yet I download music from an artist I want to contribute even more to, but I spend 5 mins on his site to download the music.<p>For small creators I think this is dumb and almost deceitful. You&#x27;re not going to make anything from hundreds of micro payments. You aren&#x27;t an (fairly popular) artist on Spotify earning revenue from millions of streamings.<p>I have a small site on Patreon that people find useful and earn a little over a hundred USD a month atm, from less than 30 patrons. I don&#x27;t even have any &quot;perks&quot; atm. I can&#x27;t imagine earning even 10 $ from something like Flattr, much less Google Ads (but I digress ;)).<p>Point being for small creators the connection to the audience, and how meaningful their contribution is I think is key. Making micro payments in a way that&#x27;s invisible to me as a contributor, that&#x27;s meaningless and I feel no connection to the creator.

This might seem super nitpicky (I apologize in advance), but the domain and blog UX needs a little fixing. My 30 second experience:<p>- skim blog, yeah, looks good, heard of this before, hope they&#x27;re successful, &lt;insert privacy concerns here&gt;, whatever<p>- click logo to try and get to main site<p>- sent to blog.flattr.net instead<p>- go to address bar, remove &quot;blog.&quot;<p>- 404<p>- ugh, maybe they&#x27;re one of those that only left &quot;www.&quot; to go their root page<p>- add &quot;www.&quot;<p>- 404<p>- Google &quot;flattr&quot;<p>- it&#x27;s &quot;flattr.com&quot;<p>ugh...

The key to a concept like this is massive, massive adoption by content creators. Flattr has been around for 7+ years and it&#x27;s still relatively non-existent. Heck, the subreddit has 63 subscribers.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong. I love the idea and was trying to pitch people for funding on this almost 10 years ago and never hit anything but a brick wall.

Any word on their content limitations? With the recent kerfluffel between Patreon and adult content creators, is this an alternative? I&#x27;m going to guess not, given the association with Visa and MC only.<p>... Had to dig - nope:<p>&gt; Pornographic or highly suggestive content or images that violate the applicable laws.<p>Their &quot;Types of websites not permitted&quot; list is fairly long: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flattr.com&#x2F;files&#x2F;terms.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;flattr.com&#x2F;files&#x2F;terms.pdf</a>

Seems like a lot of hassle. Why shouldn&#x27;t creators just keep using Patreon? None of the buzzwords in the post would convince me to switch.

They now charge a massive 16.5% fee.

Personally I like platforms like <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;liberapay.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;liberapay.com</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gratipay.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gratipay.com</a> which fund themselves via themselves. I certainly think that 7.5% is too high for the kind of service that Flattr provides.

Are they claiming that installing local spyware is somehow more secure than if they just used third party cookies to track their users usage?<p>I mean its bad enough that an ad network knows when you goto a participating site, but this would have access to so much more. With zero benefit over using the same techniques google and facebook use to track you.

Hi, I&#x27;m Linus co-founder of Flattr. Will try and answer any questions you might have!

Which will win<p>1. Flattr 2. Basic Attention Token 3. Cryptocurrency browser mining?

My guess is something like STEEM will eventually become mainstream, and people will be able to upvote&#x2F;like posts on the internet with real money.

Patreon with less features but a browser extension?

What is it with so many new sites and companies give such a vague description of what they do. I am literally clueless.

I used to love Flattr&#x27;s general concept, but from a product management perspective, I&#x27;m more than skeptical these changes will drive adoption. They don&#x27;t make it easier for creators, and consumers now have a default-spending process running with questionable privacy implications, instead of making conscious decisions about whom to support.<p>That being said, I think the general model of Flattr is really great and I&#x27;ve always wondered why the Flattr button wasn&#x27;t more widely adopted. It seemed like the perfect solution to publishers&#x27; monetization crisis.<p>- The transaction happens directly between consumer and creator, without a detour through ads (yes, there is a payment provider involved, but it&#x27;s a lot more direct through Flattr) - I can pay after I actually consumed the content, when I have full information about its usefulness for me (unlike subscription models and paywalls) - There is a feedback mechanism built in, that lets content creators know what consumers consider pay-worthy.<p>What I would have loved to see was an analysis of key inhibiting factors and then a few well-researched product decisions and how they will remove these inhibitors.<p>I&#x27;m worried by Flattr&#x27;s statement in this post, saying (paraphrased) &#x27;we&#x27;re not sure how many of you are going to like these changes, but we don&#x27;t really have any guidance to go by&#x27;.<p>Creators still have to sign up with Flattr, so the only thing that&#x27;s easier for them is that they don&#x27;t have to add the button to their sites anymore.<p>Consumers still have to manage their payment details and amount per payment cycle, what&#x27;s easier for them is that they don&#x27;t have to press the button anymore. But this removes the conscious act of explicitly supporting something I liked to a default mode of supporting everyone on whose site I spend a certain amount of time, no matter if I actually liked what I found there (if I understand the new model correctly).<p>Yes, I can go in afterwards and remove sites from the list of sites I give money to, but that seems much more tedious than pressing a Flattr button once per article&#x2F;post&#x2F;whatever that I actually enjoyed and want to consciously support. Now I need to be careful about who I give money to.<p>I&#x27;d like me spending money to be a conscious decision, not an automated process running by default in the background.

I looked for 2 minutes trying to find out what &quot;Flattr&quot; is.

Couldn&#x27;t you just use cookies to track which creator a user visits and how often? I doubt many people are willing to install a extension for that.

So, does monthly payment works now ? I tried flattr years ago and it didn&#x27;t even do it, that&#x27;s a pretty obvious feature...

install a software? i think im passing on this one. too much spyware floating around these days

I just don&#x27;t see this being worthwhile.