Comparison of economic models

Posted Jun 15, 2017 18:28 UTC (Thu) by Creideiki (subscriber, #38747)
Parent article: The Brave web browser

It looks like Brave is doing pretty much the same thing as Flattr's current reinvention, with the only difference I can see being Bitcoins vs. Euros. Flattr has relied on a button added to each participating site since it started in 2010, but is moving to a browser-based zero-effort solution.

I assume, given the strong network effects, that it's easy to have such a system being wildly popular in one field and completely unknown elsewhere. In my corner of the Internet (which is inhabited by a fairly artsy crowd), Flattr's minimal-interaction model faded into obscurity several years ago, with the interaction-rich Patreon rising to prominence instead. Then again, the example screenshot in the article shows only news sites, and maybe Patreon has the wrong model for them.

Is Flattr still being used elsewhere? What other popular micropayment systems are there, and how are they different?