by bmm6o on 3/12/24, 1:24 PM with 77 comments
by ceejayoz on 3/12/24, 1:56 PM
Back in 2022:
> Kickstarter's COO, Sean Leow, did an interview with The Beat to discuss the announcement. He seemed to be a little bit confused on the whole concept throughout, and seemed to believe that "open source" is some sort of competing idea to blockchains. At one point he stated, "We believe that that data can be structured in a way through a blockchain where it ... can move in a much more efficient and effective way between services ... in a way that open source doesn't allow". Later in the interview he spoke about governance, saying, "our understanding is that [governance] is done more effectively with blockchain then with open-source."
by CM30 on 3/12/24, 2:09 PM
As for this:
> The biggest problem for Kickstarter, though, may be that time has simply passed it by. “I feel like they just were left in the dust culturally"
I'm not sure that's really the whole story. The story (at least from what I can tell) is just that crowdfunding has developed a terrible reputation due to all the scams and failed promises from big name projects there, so people don't really take it seriously anymore. The rise in popularity for things like Patreon isn't a replacement for that, it's a move to a setup where creators are expected to show their work on a regular basis and provide an actual return on investment on a shorter timeframe than 'whenever it's ready'.
by edent on 3/12/24, 2:01 PM
> The grand but improbable plan called for shifting its entire platform onto a blockchain called Celo, another a16z portfolio company
(emphasis added)
I was at an advertising startup which got a massive investment from SoftBank. One of the people involved in signing the deal told me that the main benefit wasn't the $$$; it was that the other companies which were funded by SoftBank would be encouraged to use our services. And, of course, we in return would use our stablemates' services where we could.
Yes, money is nice. But becoming part of a mutually-reinforcing collective is the real prize.
In this case, it was obviously an attempt to stimulate a market into existence. We should all be grateful it failed!
by rsynnott on 3/12/24, 2:06 PM
As is tradition.
(Did any company _ever_ launch anything borderline successful with The Almighty Blockchain(TM) that wasn't just some sort of token?)
by drdrek on 3/12/24, 2:27 PM
Its a niche idea, unsuitable for VC money. On the other hand, non financial goals for companies almost always end badly. When you have more than one goal there is always an excuse for management to do what ever they want.
Want to do something for profits? we need this for the company survival. Want to do something financially irresponsible? Its aligned to our values. Unrelated to the core business? Social responsibility. Leave creative outlets to creative syndicates, leave charity work to non profits and leave money making to for profit companies... don't be another one of those that break the mold only to discover that people that came before you where not as dumb as you thought. Basically don't be Crypto.
by nottorp on 3/12/24, 2:32 PM
Wouldn't Kickstarter have been fine if they just didn't take outside investment and just stayed a small entity bringing financing to some small projects and making some extra money in the process?
Why compete with Patreon? Personally I would and have thrown a one time few $ to computer game projects I was interested in on most crowdfunding platforms. But I'll never pay for a subscription.
by bmm6o on 3/12/24, 1:25 PM
by nazca on 3/12/24, 3:07 PM
by paulgerhardt on 3/12/24, 3:50 PM
After Philips caused a stink about LifX[1], it was the threat of losing their payment partners that caused Kickstarter to ban all sales of hardware [2]. They would later walk back that decision but not before we launched our own open source competitor that went on to do $100m, including Bitcoin support in 2012 [3].
Which is to say decentralized payment systems solve a lot of problems for crowdfunding platforms. Specifically Kickstarter missed out on the explosive growth that GoFundMe captured because Kickstarters payment processor said “no” and GoFundMe’s said “yes”.
But switching to Celo or some other platform in 2021+ feels too little too late for a platform whose culture has ossified.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2012/09/03/16...
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2012/10/07/the-story-of-lockitron-cro...
by helsinkiandrew on 3/12/24, 2:23 PM
The video is worth watching if you've seen it/the TV adaptation: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/drywrite/fleabag
by Mistletoe on 3/12/24, 2:16 PM