As more and more people share their creativity online, an enormous amount of content is created. Not all of that content is very good, but when it is, I like to be able to say “Thank you for that!” to the creator.
One way of doing that, which I have been doing for a long time already, is blogging about the wonderful stuff I encounter. I also bookmark interesting stuff on my Delicious, tweet about it and curate moste of it on my Amplify. That’s sharing the attention and excitement.
When I want to acknowledge that something is very valuable to me, I run into problems. Because not everything I like is music on Bandcamp, where I can choose to reward great music with money. Not everything I like is created by someone who’s book I could by on Amazon, to support them.
Enter Flattr!
Flattr was founded to help people share money, not just content. Before Flattr, the only reasonable way to donate has been to use Paypal or other systems to send money to people. The threshold for this is quite high. People would just ignore the option to send donations if it wasn’t for a really important cause. Sending just a small sum has always been a pain in the ass. Who would ever even login to a payment system just to donate €0.01? And €10 was just too high for just one blog entry we liked..
So, there you have it. I will Flattr stuff I like online, and you can Flattr my stuff if you like it by using the orange button below.
What are your thoughts?
Do you think micro-payments are too much of a hassle?
Related articles
- Flattr micropayment app arrives in the Android Market (downloadsquad.switched.com)
- The real world gets an “Online Tipjar” with the Flattr Android app (lykledevries.nl)
- Support Writers, Publishers, Non-Profits (Yes, Including WikiLeaks) With Donations Via Flattr (readwriteweb.com)
my biggest issue with it is the 10% fee, since this means that if every one would be content creators(this isn’t the case but still) and everyone would flattr each other in a big echosystem, in the end, that 10% would actually grow much larger. Imo they should just skip the fee and have a flattr flattr button on their page…
Fair point, but who says they will stick to the 10% fee in the future? If the volume increases, that percentage could drop.
To make the concept 100% ’round’, the Flattr-flattr button makes sense. But it might also hinder early development…