Adblock Plus bands together with Flattr, developing a tool that lets users donate to websites they've blocked ads on called Flattr Plus — the only name based on logic, of course.
It's no mystery that online content creators typically rely on ads to generate substantial revenue to keep the lights on, and when ad-blocking software started to become more widespread, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that publishers hated it.
What's striking about this development is that the solution to bring the blood feud to an end comes from none other than one of the most prominent ad blockers in the current brood: Adblock Plus. With Flattr Plus, readers can still support the websites they frequently visit while doing away with the not-so-loved ads. In other words, the middleman is essentially taken out of the picture.
As for how it works, it automatically sends out donations to the publishers based on the user's allotted budget and activity on their websites. On that note, it does the math for the visitor, but things could get tricky on this front, especially when big sums of money go to click-bait articles and webpages that have simply been left open.
"The idea of great content has gotten lost in click-bait headlines and slideshow articles. All with the goal of generating advertising revenues. If we want to reverse that trend, we need a funding model that is based on engagement and attention rather than mere visits," Linus Olsson, Flattr co-founder and Flattr Plus chief developer, says.
With that said, the developers are working on a foolproof method to accurately measure how the contributions will be distributed, noting that it will be based on the amount of time and scrolling done.
On the other side of the fence, online creators will have to sign up with Flattr Plus to get in on the action, and if they don't at first but do so in the future, they'll see how much they could've earned when they joined in the fun sooner.
For the record, Flattr Plus will take a 10 percent cut for each transaction, just like the case with Flattr.
To boil things down, everyone could be happy with Flattr Plus, from the readers to the websites — well, except for the advertisers, that is. The tool is expected to go official sometime this year.
