Comment by cwyers | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cwyers | Hacker News Reader

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"All this adds up to a criticism that has been levied at high-profile Kickstarter campaigns before: Crowdfunding is theoretically supposed to bolster charities, start-ups, independent artists, small-business owners and other projects that actually need the financial support of the masses to succeed. It’s not supposed to be co-opted by companies with profit motives and private investors of their own … which, despite Burton’s charisma, is exactly what the Rainbow reboot is."

Says who?

Look, it's a consensual relationship between backers and people looking for crowdfunding. Obviously outright fraud is wrong, but the article isn't alleging that this is anywhere close to that -- everyone agrees that they're asking for money for what they say they want money for. (And corporations with profit motives and outside investors are, oddly enough, a hedge against the biggest problem with crowdfunding -- the risk that the product won't be delivered upon. "[C]harities, start-ups, independent artists, small-business owners" are more likely to fail to deliver than an otherwise successful business that turns to crowdfunding to support a project.)

"Says who? Look, it's a consensual relationship between backers and people looking for crowdfunding."

Well, I do, for one. I watched the video and read the kickstarter page, and came close to donating. But the more I learned, the more I thought: "wait. this is trying to leverage my childhood nostalgia for a good public television show into a donation to what amounts to an internet startup with a paid product." And then, once I'd re-framed the project in that light I started comparing it to other worthy causes, and it didn't stack up.

The thing is, it took me a lot of thought to get to that point, and I'm pretty sure that most people just punched the money button because Levar Burton and "OMG cute childhood memories!" I'll even wager that a fair number contributed because reading and/or attention span isn't a strong suit (irony!), and they thought the thing was to bring the show back to PBS since there were lots of reading rainbow logos everywhere.

A "consensual relationship" it may be, but the old adage about a sucker being born every minute was also rooted in consensual relationships. It's why we have (had?) those pesky securities laws that prevented direct consumer solicitation of investment in private companies.

Yes, exactly. The other half of the article feels exactly the same: "PBS decided to kill the show, so LeVar is obviously wrong for wanting to continue anyway". It doesn't present an argument that teaching language is more important than creating a desire to consume books; it just appeals to PBS's authority.

But aside from the article's shortcomings, I do agree with their sentiment. You typically see Kickstarter pages explain what they need the money for in some level of detail -- who would want to give strangers money otherwise?

The idea of promoting literature to children is great, but that's just a mission statement. The entire pitch is frustratingly unspecific about what exactly they're making with their million dollars. I can take some pretty good guesses, but why should backers need to guess at that?

I haven't really checked out the Kickstarter -- Reading Rainbow doesn't tickle my nostalgia fancy as much as some people, so while I'm glad they have a chance to contribute if they want, I'm not really interested in it myself.

But when the history of this day and age is written, we're going to look back at Kickstarter as a candle in the darkness -- right now it's one of the very few ways in which "new media" is grappling seriously with the idea of figuring out how to get consumers pay content producers for content they want, rather than requiring content producers to figure out how to turn their creative endeavor into a convenient medium for advertising. The way some people want to throw it under the bus just because people are actually using it to make money rather than keeping it "pure" for the starving artist annoys me. I want people to make money off Kickstarter. I want more and more content to be made because it's what consumers want, not because it's how advertisers can reach consumers.

I also have a bone to pick with that paragraph. It's contradictory.

The author says that crowdfunding is theoretically supposed to bolster start-ups and small-business owners. The next sentence says that it's not supposed to be used by people with profit motives and private investors. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't startups and small businesses usually have investors and want profit?

It is not contradictory. They want profit but do not have private investors.

Did I just read the statement "startups do not have private investors" on YCombinator.com?

I should have said "they don't all have private investors". The article, as I read it, is making the argument that Kickstarter should only be used by entities who do not already have enough money to do whatever they are planning.

I knew this article would be a mess when I saw the word, "donation" in the link title.

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