That use case seems to have been entirely superceded by Patreon. The fact that it isn't quite identical, well, that's part of why it has been superceded by Patreon.
But both Flattr and Patreon miss the relatively involuntary nature of ad networks. Certain things can not count on being supported by eager contributors, and need to more-or-less force themselves in to somehow earn revenue. I'm not all that perturbed by saying "then perhaps they shouldn't exist", but I don't have to take a survey to guess I'm in the very minority view on that.
To give a positive example of that where it's not just "clickbait" but is actually a useful thing: My wife and I get a lot of recipes off the internet. But of the several dozen she's pinned on Pinterest, I'd say I've only seen one or two sites repeated. Mostly we're wandering around hither and yon, not showing any site loyalty. If my use case is the common one, then patronage isn't really a solution. (Including Flattr, which to a first approximation, zero of the people visiting those recipe sites have ever heard of, and low single digits of them would use it if they had.) But ads aren't necessarily working terribly well either; I've seen some recipes so laden down with ads that I got tired of waiting for the recipe to stop jumping around on my phone as it loaded Yet Another Ad into the middle of the text, and went and got my computer, where uMatrix nuked the ads without even trying.
> Mostly we're wandering around hither and yon, not showing any site loyalty.
I agree with your main point, but to clarify: Flattr was specifically designed for this sort of one-off usage. Clicking a Flattr button doesn't subscribe to anything, it just adds that person/site to a list on your Flattr account. At the end of the month, your money is divided evenly between those on the list, then the list is cleared.
You can set up subscriptions on Flattr, which sounds more like Patreon's model, but the default mode is for one-off drive-by donations. Flattr subscriptions are just an automated way to click a Flattr button once a month.
The only problem with Flattr is that it doesn't work.
Other than that it's great.
I mean this both straight and a bit sarcastically. I'm ideologically inclined to want to see it work. But it doesn't, it hasn't, and I see little reason to expect that to change in the future. Patreon doesn't work perfectly, and perhaps there's an even better model waiting for someone to find it, but it does work.
It does strike me as the sort of thing that would be a decent VC candidate. It is plausible to me that Flattr's core problem is an activation-energy one. But I can't run that experiment myself.
Patreon has the problem that I can't support someone with $0.50 per month because of transaction costs. Almost all patreon tiers start at $5/month and go up from there. There is a very small percentage of things I use the internet for that I am willing to pay $5/month for.
That's the artist's fault, not Patreon. I've sponsored some artists on Patreon at $1/mo.
I don't think it's a transaction cost issue; Patreon charges my credit card once per month (aggregating multiple $1-3/mo charges into a single charge), and I believe they pay the artists once per month too (aggregating hundreds or thousands of contributions).
I wish Patreon had a model where I could say "I want to pay $15/mo for my internet entertainment" and then just drop in whoever I'm into right now and it splits it among them.
Patreon requires you to develop a dedicated following and commit to putting out regular content. The Flattr model would allow non regular content creators to be rewarded based on individual pieces of content.
I tend to agree with the comments above that the Flattr model doesn't work, but I think it would certainly be ideal for a lot of people creating content on the side if it did.
I've been using it for a while now and no one contributes to it. I've worked on multiple open source projects, some with a lot of visibility, write a good amount of free content, and the most you'll ever get is 'thanks'. Unless you fall into specific groups your chances of making money from systems like Flattr are basically 0.
Patreon seems to be a better model, to be honest. It's about nine million dollars a month in total pledge, which meant over one hundred million in revenue per year if it never grows beyond that.
I prefer Flattr's model to Patreon, as it lets me spread donations around without much commitment, e.g. when googling for error messages and finding helpful blog posts. A Flattr<->Patreon bridge might be a nice idea, so creators using one can receive donations from the other.
Unfortunately Flattr's mechanisms for transfering money were overly complicated when I used to use it: to keep down third-party transfer fees, each Flattr account maintained its own balance, and could be manually topped up or withdrawn from in bulk using a relatively obscure payment gateway.
This obscurity and manual intervention discouraged topping up, and made it very easy to forget. I also seem to remember those receiving Flattrs being unable to withdraw anything until they reached a certain minimum balance, which was difficult to achieve for a relatively unknown network of micropayments.
I'd probably start using it again, if I could forget about my "Flattr balance" and just have it automatically top-up by $X from my bank account via some common gateway, whenever there's not enough to cover the end-of-month payment; I could then manage it in the same way as my existing charity donations.
EDIT: The above was based on my experience in Flattr's first few years of existence. I've just logged in and there now seem to be many more payment methods, and an auto-topup option :)
IANAA but generally if they're just processing payments then GAAP revenue would only be the difference between cash in and what they immediately pay out. Think of it in terms of facilitating a transaction and taking a cut of what flows through their hands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattr
Not enough traction? Someone has to start using it, people will adapt...