> But at the end of the day, there's a free-loader problem where I can benefit from your donation, so this system hasn't really taken off. Many crowdfunding sy

> But at the end of the day, there's a free-loader problem where I can benefit from your donation, so this system hasn't really taken off. Many crowdfunding systems are in fact specifically designed to be resilient against the free-loader problem. The work doesn't get funded at all unless enough people pitch in, and it doesn't cost you anything to "pledge" support for a work that doesn't make its funding threshold. So, it's rational for anyone who has a genuine interest in the work getting made, to pitch in for it - the only agents who get to "free ride" are marginal contributors who would have little interest in the work in the first place. Rather, I'd argue that crowdfunding (1) is still an emerging model for supporting creators, so we shouldn't be so quick as to label it "unsuccessful" and (2) to the extent that it doesn't routinely fund multi-million dollar content like Game of Thrones-like TV shows or AAA videogames, that's because these media formats themselves are way too costly to make in the first place for users to be willing to transparently fund them - such that they're routinely outcompeted by cheaper alternatives!