This rate is way over nearly every service out there, including Paypal.
Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi claims to be a socialist on the page here: http://flattr.com/team . I guess the outrageous fee that they charge shouldn't come as a surprise...this is what socialist governments do.
Flattr is still a very new concept. Once they have more users I am sure it would be possible to lower the percentage. I wouldn't mind throwing in some extra money to cover the 10%, because this has the potential to change how content on the Internet gets paid for.
What I find annoying is that it's the incoming money that is taxed : if you give this money again it get taxed again, so this is actually 10%+9%+8.1% etc... It would be cleaner if the tax apply to withdrawed money or injected money or anything else not cumulative.
Disclaimer : that's not my observation, I read it, but this is something that really kill the idea for me
Probably the inflammatory injection of political ad hominem, and the implication that HN should be regarded as adversarial. Complaints about karma are also never well received.
Seems to be slightly inspired by kickstarter. Been in the same office as Flattr, has a lot of potential but I don't think they're going about fixing tips in the correct way yet.
This is very good because it is going to be very hard (read expensive) to spam. As was discussed here earlier this week, using links for ranking websites incites spammers to create intricate link farms and, in a sense, the web is rotting from it.
Typical behavior-driven ranking features (impression vs. click-through, length of time a user is on the site, number of times visited) can be simulated with clever enough bots, relatively inexpensively.
On the other hand, flattr has is not only a record of websites viewed, but an actual amount of money must change hands and is a powerful feature for the social proof of a website.
Granted, maybe there is a sense in which this makes it easier for spammers (just throw a bunch of money at it via flattr and you'll rank higher!) and they'll undoubtedly have to deal with spam like everyone else. But all in all I think this is a clever move and no one (in my knowledge) has tied social cash so directly to ranking.
7 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 25.3 ms ] threadThis rate is way over nearly every service out there, including Paypal.
Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi claims to be a socialist on the page here: http://flattr.com/team . I guess the outrageous fee that they charge shouldn't come as a surprise...this is what socialist governments do.
Silencing your opposition won't make it go away.
Typical behavior-driven ranking features (impression vs. click-through, length of time a user is on the site, number of times visited) can be simulated with clever enough bots, relatively inexpensively.
On the other hand, flattr has is not only a record of websites viewed, but an actual amount of money must change hands and is a powerful feature for the social proof of a website.
Granted, maybe there is a sense in which this makes it easier for spammers (just throw a bunch of money at it via flattr and you'll rank higher!) and they'll undoubtedly have to deal with spam like everyone else. But all in all I think this is a clever move and no one (in my knowledge) has tied social cash so directly to ranking.