It appears some of the people who you can tip on the site actually had the tip jars set up for them without their knowledge. I think this was on HN before about why that isn't cool.
http://krisstraub.com/2011/11/20/kachingle-and-the-transgres...
http://krisstraub.com/2011/11/20/kachingle-and-the-transgres...
I imagined money accumulating over time until it was significant. Then finding out about it would be like getting a call that you won a genius grant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Fellows_Program
I could see this as a possible compromise if opt-out turns out to really suck as bad as with Kachinga.
I see a few differences with Kachinga:
- With Gittip, recipients receive the full face value of their tips. The donor is responsible for credit card fees.
- The fees are minimal: $0.10 + 3.9%. Right now I'm using Samurai for payments, and they charge me $0.10 + 2.3%. My margins are thin.
- My margins are not going to be "my" margins. If this gets traction, we're going to organize it as a cooperative, not a corporation. The plan is for everyone who tips through the site to be a member of the cooperative, the purpose of which will be for the escrow of gifts to individuals.
- Gittip tipjars are tied to people, not companies or websites (you can currently send tips to Github organization accounts, but that's ticketed to fix: https://github.com/whit537/www.gittip.com/issues/4). I can imagine changing that but for now it's designed for people, natural persons.