5 ms·

Strong argument for a 'maximum' cap on kickstarter funding.

georgemcbay 14y ago
How would it be decided, though? By the person posting the Kickstarter? Despite claiming to be about raising less than $1,000 this Kickstarter allotted up to 5 rewards for $10,000 donations -- so I'm going to guess in this case they wouldn't have voluntarily put a sane cap on this.
- petercooper 14y ago
  It could be a multiple of the original amount, perhaps. That is, at a 2x multiple, say, an attempt at raising $800 could go no further than $1600.
  - eridius 14y ago
    Terrible idea. That would have severely impacted all of the high-profile projects to date. Whoa, HN double-posted my comment. Never seen that happen before.
    - petercooper 14y ago
      The thing is, the big heavily funded projects I can recall all got to that stage by essentially selling something (the OUYA stands out in this regard). And Kickstarter now seem to be making the point that it's not about selling stuff but just raising enough to produce something you can sell separately later. So while I don't actually agree with my own idea, it would seem to fit with the new line of thinking over there IMHO. (Happens to me every now and then, but the software is smart enough to [dead] the dupes, somehow.)
      - eridius 14y ago
        Sure, they sold something. This is the first "high-profile" (whereby that I mean I'm actually seeing it on HN or some other aggregator that I read) Kickstarter I've seen that isn't really about the actual thing being created. That said, backers are actually getting a copy of the game, plus other perks, just like any other video game kickstarter. The only reason there's any controversy seems to be the fact that the mother in question could presumably have afforded to do this without the kickstarter. But as others have said, just because she could have afforded to do this another way doesn't make the kickstarter somehow wrong. (And yeah, HN did [dead] the dupe, which I then deleted, I've just never had this happen before).
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- DividesByZero 14y ago
  Let's look at this from a game theory point of view. A self-imposed cap is a signal to potential contributors that you don't intend for this particular project to exceed some specific aim. Sending this signal lets contributors differentiate between these types of kickstarters, which seems to be the problem here.
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mikeash 14y ago
Why? It's not like the people who caused this to go way past the goal had no idea that they had exceeded the original goal. Kickstarter makes it perfectly clear how much money has been raised so far, and what the goal is.
- DividesByZero 14y ago
  It's not like you can stop it happening either.

How would it be decided, though? By the person posting the Kickstarter? Despite claiming to be about raising less than $1,000 this Kickstarter allotted up to 5 rewards for $10,000 donations -- so I'm going to guess in this case they wouldn't have voluntarily put a sane cap on this.

petercooper 14y ago
It could be a multiple of the original amount, perhaps. That is, at a 2x multiple, say, an attempt at raising $800 could go no further than $1600.
- eridius 14y ago
  Terrible idea. That would have severely impacted all of the high-profile projects to date. Whoa, HN double-posted my comment. Never seen that happen before.
  - petercooper 14y ago
    The thing is, the big heavily funded projects I can recall all got to that stage by essentially selling something (the OUYA stands out in this regard). And Kickstarter now seem to be making the point that it's not about selling stuff but just raising enough to produce something you can sell separately later. So while I don't actually agree with my own idea, it would seem to fit with the new line of thinking over there IMHO. (Happens to me every now and then, but the software is smart enough to [dead] the dupes, somehow.)
    - eridius 14y ago
      Sure, they sold something. This is the first "high-profile" (whereby that I mean I'm actually seeing it on HN or some other aggregator that I read) Kickstarter I've seen that isn't really about the actual thing being created. That said, backers are actually getting a copy of the game, plus other perks, just like any other video game kickstarter. The only reason there's any controversy seems to be the fact that the mother in question could presumably have afforded to do this without the kickstarter. But as others have said, just because she could have afforded to do this another way doesn't make the kickstarter somehow wrong. (And yeah, HN did [dead] the dupe, which I then deleted, I've just never had this happen before).
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
DividesByZero 14y ago
Let's look at this from a game theory point of view. A self-imposed cap is a signal to potential contributors that you don't intend for this particular project to exceed some specific aim. Sending this signal lets contributors differentiate between these types of kickstarters, which seems to be the problem here.

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mikeash 14y ago

Why? It's not like the people who caused this to go way past the goal had no idea that they had exceeded the original goal. Kickstarter makes it perfectly clear how much money has been raised so far, and what the goal is.

DividesByZero 14y ago
It's not like you can stop it happening either.