Re: [tlug] kickstarter for open source...

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Edward Middleton writes:
 > On 06/06/2013 06:06 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

 > > Sure, tons of them have been tried.  Two of the biggest were
 > > sourceXchange and coSource.com.  None of them worked.  Crowdfunding
 > > works because it's basically the same as leaving your pennies in the
 > > UNICEF box at the cash register at 7-11.  Good cause, the money is
 > > less pain than getting bit by a mosquito.  The little coppers add up.
 > 
 > Do you have data to support this or is it just a feeling?

Data to support what?  The failure of all FLOSS-specific schemes to
date?  Sure, it's history.  Many of them were proposed on the FSB
mailing list and on gnu.misc.discuss.  Some were tried, none survive.

My feeling that crowdfunding does work up to a point, based on
aggregating large numbers of small contributions (where "large" is
nowhere near as big as the "big" in "big data", of course)?  That's
mostly a feeling, based on (1) the theoretical analysis that the
psychology of sending money via the internet has percolated down to
the point where "spam economics" apply (ie, with 100 million targets
at $10 each, a conversion rate of man-ga-ichi is worth $1000), and (2)
the historical success of those UNICEF boxes at the 7-11.

 > I haven't any rigorous data but of the projects I have looked at
 > there seem to be significant numbers at the $10,000 USD level which
 > suggested to me real potential for this approach.

The question is how much money actually changes hands?  Projects
asking for $10,000 don't necessarily get 100% pledged, and they get
nothing.  Projects that do make it to 100% don't necessarily get the
pledged amount, and we have no idea what they are actually getting.

At least the Kickstarter site seems to be designed to hide all
information about actual financial results, not to mention hiding all
the unsuccessful projects.  I wonder why they do that?

So yes, there's potential.  But it's very hard to say what the
realization is, and harder to predict what will happen as this
"market" gets saturated.  I think that the number of projects is going
to grow exponentially, but the number of contributors is already
flattening out.

And how many people will repeat contributions?  How often?  If the
answers are "few" and "less often as the novelty wears off", then
there's a really big premium to projects that are in this space *now*
as opposed to in a year or three.

It's all theory and imperfectly analogous history, so I could be
wrong, of course. ;-)