Look everyone! Micropayments are back!!! (sort of)
Originally published at Karmic Debt Comics. You can comment here or there.
I’ve been wanting to write a post about Flattr for awhile now, I just haven’t gotten around to it. The basic premise of Flattr is simple, you sign up for Flattr and give them X amount of money every month. You can then Flattr someone by clicking on the Flattr button they have on their site. So if you see a site with the most awesome content that you have ever seen, you click on their Flattr button and they get the amount that you paid for the month (minus whatever fees Flattr applies). If you see two sites with content that was so awesome it changed your life, you click on their Flattr button and the split the amount you paid for the month. This can go on ad infinitum, with your monthly subscription being divided into smaller and smaller slices.
Now that we have a basic understanding of Flattr let’s talk about whether or not it could actually work.
At least one article I have read seems to think it will, going so far as to liken the Flattr button as the next Facebook “Like” button. They say “Is Flattr the new Facebook Like, this time with real money?” and there in lies the problem… money. People are notoriously unwilling to pay for content online… at least webcomic content. While this idea is less like a true micropayment, where what the reader wants to see is locked behind a subscription wall it’s still similar in that you are asking your readers for money. The key to making this sort of thing work is to make it as simple and as transparent as possible. The Flattr button is like that candy bar in the check out line at the supermarket, it is an impulse to click it. If there are 12 layers to get through to actually give money, then that is 12 chances for the reader to back out of the transaction. So that is step 1, make it as simple as the Facebook like button, one click and you “like” something, and the case of Flattr you liked it so much you gave them money.
The next step needs to be market saturation, if needs to be ubiquitous like that darn Facebook Like button… it needs to be everywhere. They need to attract both content creators and fans of said content, in order for both to be able to receive and/or give Flattr-y. (hey, look I came up with a neat term for giving Flattr!!) Without a large group of content creators then there is no motivation for the fans to join, and without a large base of fans there is little motivation for content creators to join. It’s a vicious cycle isn’t it…
Without these two things I see this making as big a splash as iCents or Bitpass.
I have some other thoughts on Kickstarter that I may share in another article, stay tuned!