Flattr - Flattr.com, My Review

Flattr - After reading Is Flattr the new Facebook Like, but this time with real money? on TechCrunch, I got excited about the concept and thought it was revolutionary. I @youmny tweeted about it. My tweet consisted of the following characters: "#Flattr a new social media that allows you to share funds, the same way you #digg... Interesting concept!" It took @flattr_e (yes, I liked the username too) less than 12 hours to respond with a Beta invite.

I was flattered by Flattr_e and happily accepted the invite to flattr.com Kudos for an amazingly well monitored environment, you might think. Those people impressed me too.

As I took a closer look at the offerings, I was repulsed by the Flattr terms of use, as they wer subject to change without notice. Was I to put money on a site with such terms?

Investigating a bit further, I found out Flattr was not much of a benevolent website. They took 10% of all transactions! Moreover, considering that revenues cannot be withdrawn unless they reach a certain threshold, the only real winners at the end of the day are Flattr.

I took a step back before posting this on my blog, as I thought how grateful I should be to have received a Beta invite. It did get me excited at first, but then again, looking at it objectively, every single additional user is equal to additional money for them, as each is required to pay a minimum of 2 euros per month. (yes, it's in Euros so far, I wonder how long that would last)

This got me thinking that the Beta invites might be just a smart way to make people feel special, give an exclusive feel. At the end of the day, you can even request an invite on the Flattr home page. Kind of smart, I agree. (Wasn't exclusivity at the beginning, reason behind Facebook's success?)

My last thought before leaving the site: This Flattr can turn out to be as profitable as a casino.