Nornagest comments on Open thread, Jan. 26 - Feb. 1, 2015 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Gondolinian 26 January 2015 12:46AM

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Comment author: Nornagest 28 January 2015 06:22:04PM *  1 point [-]

It's an interesting idea but I'm not sure it has the psychology behind crowdfunding right. It seems to be constructed to minimize the risk donors carry in the event of a failed campaign, and to maximize the perceived leverage of small donations; but it does that at the expense of bragging rights and fine-grained control, which might make a lot of donors leery. I think you could probably tweak it to solve those problems, though.

It also does nothing at all to solve the accountability issues of traditional crowdfunding, but that's a hard problem. I wouldn't even mention it if they hadn't brought it up in the introduction.

(Also, that's some ugly-ass web design. I get that they're trying to go for the XKCD aesthetic, but it's... really not working.)

Comment author: bogus 28 January 2015 06:47:16PM 1 point [-]

It also does nothing at all to solve the accountability issues of traditional crowdfunding, but that's a hard problem. I wouldn't even mention it if they hadn't brought it up in the introduction.

Yes, crowdfunding is mostly based on trust, not accountability. But a service that's funded continuously over time (the Snowdrift.coop model) ought to be inherently more accountable than a single campaign/project.

Comment author: Nornagest 28 January 2015 06:52:21PM *  0 points [-]

Yeah, it's more accountable than Kickstarter funding, but not more accountable than Patreon funding.

Comment author: Lumifer 28 January 2015 06:28:28PM 1 point [-]

t seems to be constructed to minimize the risk donors carry in the event of a failed campaign, and to maximize the perceived leverage of small donations

I think it's been constructed to maximize democracy -- the crowdthink determines the flow of money. I can't tell if the author considers the inevitable snowballing to be a feature or a misfeature (or even realizes it will happen).