

Light Table Listens to feedback and dramatically lowers prices - bostonvaulter2
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table/posts/210222&dup=1

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scott_s
I don't think it's accurate to call this a _price_. You are not purchasing a
product when you fund something on Kickstarter. You are investing in them, and
if they succeed, you get the thing you signed up for. I think that most people
who invest in projects on Kickstarter now understand this, but I'm not sure
that will continue to be true as it grows in popularity.

~~~
JackC
I think Kickstarter can be either a purchase, or an investment, or both. From
their site:

 _Copies of the thing: the album, the DVD, a print from the show. These items
should be priced what they would cost in a retail environment. ...

Kickstarter isn’t charity: we champion exchanges that are a mix of commerce
and patronage, and the numbers bear this out. ...

So what works? Offering something of value. Actual value considers more than
just sticker price. If it’s a limited edition or a one-of-a-kind experience,
there’s a lot of flexibility based on your audience. But if it’s a
manufactured good, then it’s a good idea to stay reasonably close to its real-
world cost._[1]

So their platform is flexible. It works as a way to take pre-orders for a
speculative new product (with no guarantee product development will succeed),
or as a way to seek patronage for your art. As far as I can tell they're not
too opinionated about which of those you go with, as long as you're creating
something.

I think the key when you're running a project is to be clear about how you're
using the platform. People think very differently about buying products and
patronizing art, so you need to structure your offers and your story
differently.

As I said in the last thread, I think the Light Table project got off on the
wrong foot because it wasn't clearly positioned as either a product or an
artistic endeavor -- it was more like, support my cool project, and then I'll
own a nice product I can sell to you later. Offering a license at every
contribution level went a long way to clarifying the message. I threw in $50.
:)

[1] <http://www.kickstarter.com/help/school/creating_rewards>

~~~
scott_s
My point is that Kickstarter is not a store, and it's not a simple money-for-
goods-or-services exchange. People who give money need to understand that. If
they don't, they'll feel cheated if the project fails and they don't get the
item that they feel they "purchased."

~~~
JackC
That's a fair point -- it'll be a problem if people get involved in
Kickstarter who don't understand that there's no guarantee the project
finishes. But I still disagree with your original point -- often on
Kickstarter you _are_ purchasing something for money. Conditional purchases
happen all the time. For example, you could pay me $500 up front for any
valuable items you find while cleaning out my grandmother's basement, and you
would have purchased something -- ownership of 0 to N valuable items. Or
suppose I give you $20 to bring me a pizza through a war zone, with the
understanding that if you get shot you can keep the $20 and don't owe me a
pizza. I've purchased a pizza -- just one I might never get to eat. (My life
is tough this way.)

I know this sounds nitpicky, but it's actually important to think about if
you're running a Kickstarter campaign with inherently valuable rewards. You
need to bear in mind that at least some of your backers will (correctly) think
of themselves as purchasing a product, just one that they realize may never be
delivered. That establishes a particular kind of relationship, and you won't
hit the right notes if you don't know it exists.

~~~
scott_s
I find your responses confusing - you state that you disagree with me, then
proceed to explain what certainly seemed to me like my point. I think we're
just disagreeing over the meaning of the word _purchase_. I'm assuming that it
means a non-conditioned, absolute thing, which is how I also assume most
people think of it. You're including it to include conditionals, which is
fine, but it's not how most people think of it.

~~~
JackC
This is a good summary of our confusion. :) Sorry to be a pain about it. Would
you agree that I can "purchase" the contents of a suitcase on a gameshow
without knowing what they are? Or that I can "purchase" next year's wheat crop
from a farm without knowing how large it will be? Or I can "purchase" 100
shares of Facebook stock to be delivered in a year? I think most people would.
And this is true even if it turns out that the suitcase is empty, or the wheat
crop is a bust, or the stock is worthless -- it's not that I haven't purchased
anything, it's that I _have_ purchased nothing.

But the point isn't really the word. The point is that if you're offering a
valuable reward on Kickstarter, some backers will think of it as a plain old
financial transaction, where they put some money down and they get to have one
of whatever you're trying to produce if you succeed. And that's totally fine
as far as Kickstarter is concerned. So if it's not how you want people to
think of _your_ Kickstarter project, you have to be careful how you position
it.

------
zanny
I still want to know why he isn't intending to fully open source it. The
funding goal should be payment for the product - just make the whole thing
open. That is the only reason I haven't donated, I feel like the Kickstarter
model should only produce open source software, and not doing so sets a
horrible example that you can get upfront donations to make something and then
still charge for it after being funded. There is so much interest in it, it
might get done even faster with community hackers.

In case anyone wonders, he says he wants to open source the "core" of Light
Table. I don't consider that enough, the whole thing should be beer free and
speech free after it gets funded.

I should mention I am not hypocritical here - I think any game funded by
Kickstarter should be open source too, so I have only donated to open source
game initiatives. I just feel the model should produce content as unencumbered
as possible because it is being paid for in advance.

~~~
AndrewDucker
I don't see why it should be open-source only. They're selling you a copy of
an app ahead of time, that's all. You're not buying shares in the company, or
getting control over how things work. You're buying a product before it's
produced, so that they can take that cash and use it to pay for the up-front
costs. Mistaking your relationship for anything more than that is asking for
disappointment.

------
peteysd
I don't really care what I get for my money. I was just glad to have an
opportunity to support a prolific developer that is making the Clojure
community a better place.

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trebor
I'd be a lot more willing to participate if PHP and/or Ruby were on the
pipeline somewhere. I don't use Clojure or python, and an IDE for just
Javascript isn't very useful to me. I've wanted to learn Clojure, but I have
almost no time to learn new languages in.

I may chip in yet, regardless of language support.

~~~
emil0r
Or you could view it as an enabler to get support for PHP and/or Ruby. No
Light Table, no possibility for support ;).

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ibdknox
I actually did that the day after it was launched :)

~~~
tobyjsullivan
I was thinking this was a bit of old news when I saw it. But who cares? More
publicity as the goal approaches! :D

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Jun8
Keeping my fingers crossed for $300K so that python is there out of the box.
With 29 days to go I'd say that's quite a large probability.

~~~
arandomJohn
This is exactly why I kicked in $80, tweeted this thing, and linked to it on
Reddit. I think it is hitting $200k for sure, the question is whether it can
plow through to $300k.

~~~
egypturnash
Kicktraq thinks so. <http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/ibdknox/light-table/>

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fruchtose
This is much more of an investment than a purchase. You purchase something
when you reasonable expect to receive it. However, if you look at what people
are saying about this project, there is a reasonable chance that you will
_not_ receive a product at the end. This type of IDE is highly experimental.
There is no guarantee that the project will come together or that the final
product if delivered will fully resemble the original vision.

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6ren
Good move. I still think it would be better to get as many people into beta
access as possible (at the lowest price - or even no price), to maximize
feedback and contributions.

But he's still going to make it to $200,000, and it's still going to be great
- thank goodness not everything needs to be perfect to be great.

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jamesaguilar
OK, I said I would back at $50 if that included the early beta access, and now
I have.

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pepijndevos
If that's the reason for getting some extra HN backing, cool, but there will
always be people who want it basically for free. I thought the previous
"prices"(investments) where good.

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tpowell
No brainer at $15. I hope they knock it out of the park.

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aiscott
I was glad to see this popup on hacker news again. I'm a backer now.
Personally, I do see this as more of a purchase than an investment.

I'd see it as a donation over an investment as well. To each their own.

~~~
politician
Well, I see it as an investment. Hopefully, we'll both be satisfied by the
outcome.

