I've said it before, and I'll say it again - equity based crowd funding is a bad idea. It's a bad idea, just like easy e-trading was and still is a bad idea bac

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - equity based crowd funding is a bad idea. It's a bad idea, just like easy e-trading was and still is a bad idea back in the late 90's for the average investor. You know why? Normal people suck at investing. Period. They just aren't equipped to make good investment decisions - they can barely handle regulated housing/stocks/bonds. The average investor isn't trained in the most basic aspects of finance, isn't qualified to determine the merit for an arbitrary startup, often has a day job that is in a completely separate industry and is just fodder for pump and dump, pyramid schemes and scammers. Professionals aren't that much better - but that's a whole another discussion (and they're playing with OPM). This is just setting up bubble 2.0. It also reminds me of another odd thing we have with investing. There's no minimum qualification or licensing needed to become an investor. Odd - seeing as someone investing their live savings as an individual is quite literally playing with what is in effect a life-time's worth of money. Now - I'm not against pre-orders for products/experiences - a la kickstarter - which I think are absolutely brilliant, and other stuff that is seen as pure consumption (not investment). What I'm against is what stuff like this will lead to. It's the people investing in Social Media Startup No. 3015 with $5 million in life savings at a $25 million post valuation in 2016. That's what's worrying.