I think the problem (at least relative to assurance contracts, which as other repliers have noted, seem to doing okay with kickstarter and other pledging sites), is a mismatch of incentives.
The primary impetus to propose and fund a new dominant assurance contract lies with the entrepreneur, but given a choice between an assurance contract (where if the pledge fails to reach its total, everyone just gets their money back, and the entrepreneur gets nothing), and a dominance assurance contract (where if the pledge fails to reach its total, everyone gets their... (read more)
I think the problem (at least relative to assurance contracts, which as other repliers have noted, seem to doing okay with kickstarter and other pledging sites), is a mismatch of incentives.
The primary impetus to propose and fund a new dominant assurance contract lies with the entrepreneur, but given a choice between an assurance contract (where if the pledge fails to reach its total, everyone just gets their money back, and the entrepreneur gets nothing), and a dominance assurance contract (where if the pledge fails to reach its total, everyone gets their... (read more)