One thing that's come up in this article, it seems that Kickstarter's members are often willing to give free money to developers. Why?
Kickstarter is referred to again and again, even by posters in this discussion, as a "micro-investment" site. That's a nice thought, except that Kickstarter funders get zero equity in what they produce. This makes great sense in funding an artist to create a new piano concerto, or produce a documentary on Rwanda. It also makes sense for development or improvement of Free Software, where the world will benefit from the result. It makes much less sense for people to fund the for-profit development of hardware that will ultimately be sold at a mark-up.
Have we somehow fooled ourselves into thinking that we are improving the world by bankrolling the creation of a more stylish iPhone dock? Or, is it the street cred of saying, "Yeah, I knew them when they were on Kickstarter..."?
Kickstarter is referred to again and again, even by posters in this discussion, as a "micro-investment" site. That's a nice thought, except that Kickstarter funders get zero equity in what they produce. This makes great sense in funding an artist to create a new piano concerto, or produce a documentary on Rwanda. It also makes sense for development or improvement of Free Software, where the world will benefit from the result. It makes much less sense for people to fund the for-profit development of hardware that will ultimately be sold at a mark-up.
Have we somehow fooled ourselves into thinking that we are improving the world by bankrolling the creation of a more stylish iPhone dock? Or, is it the street cred of saying, "Yeah, I knew them when they were on Kickstarter..."?