Adblock Plus, one of the most popular ad blocking services, is now openly being referred to as the Scrooge of the internet by more than just publishers and advertisers. The company is now teaming up with Swedish microdonation startup Flattr to try and help more of us online “workers” get paid for our work.
The idea is brilliant in theory, however the long tail of things would seemingly get messy for most.
Flattr Plus promises to pay those that create the stories, videos, and art on the Internet. To use it, you sign up and set a monthly budget of how much you’d like to spend on stuff you look at on the web. The idea is that you can seamlessly donate money to those whose work you read, listen to, or watch.
Flattr Plus lets you pay for online content with less effort, says Adblock Plus’ communications and operations manager Ben Williams. You then don’t have to decide who you want to pay for their efforts or even how much. You also won’t have to sign into a bunch of different sites, to purchase or peruse content. The idea is that would surf and meander the web like you would normally do and Flattr Plus tracks where you spend your time.
The problem with this concept is, that most of us take in a bunch of content each and everyday. So even if you are willing to donate to a handful of your favorite places the amount of money that they will receive would be minimal. This also goes on the assumption that you would be willing to actually pay for content (stories, videos, etc) that you could already legitimately get for free!
So you tell me, good idea or bad?
