Just want to say that this is a brilliant idea, particularly for helping musicians. A similar idea to this had occurred to me months ago before seeing this site, and I’m glad to see you are doing it so well.

My idea was of getting people together to sponsor and help support a few of their favorite musicians, so that the musician could focus on writing true music. The goal of everyone involved was to make the artist better -to allow them to develop a personal style, to dig it out of themselves and put it on a recording, without being lured & distracted by fame, free from having to cater to the trends -the status quo tastes that define what’s popular now.

I think Flattr is a realization of this ideal. Instead of focusing on wether it being centralized or not is a good or bad thing, let’s focus on what Flattr can do in the bigger scope -ideally, make better artists.

We have enough graphic artists & icon makers and enough self-indulgent artists getting paid to fill museums, how about something that helps people develop a personal style? Nietzsche said that true art makes a small sound, it’s nearly inaudible.

In the world of music we’ve been awash in music imitating the past with lyrics that are nondescript, insincere or just inaudible bits that help express an emotion. We look for something genuine but can’t find it and so we resort to tried and true styles. Artists look too much outside of themselves, being influenced by myths of fame.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but I feel like if musicians & artists weren’t obsessed with ‘making it’ and could just be pleased with ‘making a living’ then they would be freed to endeavor on a personal journey of discovery, which is what created the ‘geniuses’ of the past.

Music isn’t as exciting or important as technology is today, let’s face it. Every new cultural breakthrough is happening in the world of tech, music has become a sideshow, Lady Gaga is too busy with fame to shed light on any truths of her own life.

Let’s see this service for what it is -a proper rival and enemy of the sickening Hollywood & big business record industry standards that turn artists into diluted, mediocre fame-bots.

And iTunes just propels the fame-based mentality further. Sure you don’t need a big record label, but you’ve got a few years during or after college to try to get noticed before you gotta go find a career.

Because money is your primary concern, and to make it you need to sell your time.

This could not have come at a better time.