10 ms·

Click here, save a life, for real

157 points by pg 13y ago

edw519 13y ago
To this inevitable complaint: Others wonder whether focusing donations on individuals, no matter how worthy, diverts funding and attention from efforts aimed at tackling the more systemic causes of inadequate healthcare in impoverished parts of the world. I can only respond with "The Starfish Parable": One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one. Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, "I'm saving these starfish, Sir". The old man chuckled aloud, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?" The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, "It made a difference to that one!"
- cgag 13y ago
  It's more like "with the same effort you could save thousands of starfish, just not the ones right in front of you" than "what difference can you make". Which is certainly something worth considering.
  - justinsteele 13y ago
    Can you? If we took the money donated to Watsi, let these people suffer/die instead, and used it all to solve an "underlying problem" - would it help more people? Without a lot of research that answer seems difficult to get to. I think in the interim, helping these people is a fine use of some people's disposable income. Also, consider that money going to Watsi does not necessarily stop money going to a different/more effective cause. Many people donating to this may not donate to a different idea, and vice versa.
    - cgag 13y ago
      I'm not necessarily talking about solving underlying problems like lack of good healthcare, I was actually just thinking about the idea that if you have 1000 dollars to give, it's worth considering the trade offs between giving it to one person for a surgery, or buy 200 bed nets to protect people from malaria or protect 200 kids from developmental problems caused by parasitic worms: http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities.
      - JoshuaDavid 13y ago
        It actually seems to be a fairly close call. It seems that bed nets prevent about 1 death from malaria for every $2000 or so [1], whereas the quality of life of some of the Watsi patients can be significantly improved for $500 to $1000 [see 2]. So the question is what the relative value of each is, and while I think the balance weighs in favor of malaria prevention, it's not a clear-cut decision. [1] http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/insecticide-treated-nets http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/ins... [2] https://watsi.org/profile/8d8d49907cc9-hussein https://watsi.org/profile/8d8d49907cc9-hussein
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    The world's systemic problems are almost entirely political in nature. Unless you want to try mass bribery, your monetary donations aren't going to fix those.
    - cgag 13y ago
      This isn't exactly what I meant, but it's not infeasible either. I have a friend whos working on a charity to help people give conditional donations to political campaigns, like only giving money to a politician on the condition they vote yes on bill x, or having your donation divided equally among people who voted against marijuana prohibitions. In which case, it might be more effective to do something like this than to donate to a defense fund for people accused of weed related crimes.
- kyro 13y ago
  Yeah, this is one of the criticisms I hate the most. In a world with Watsi and without, the former is a measurably better place.
- aaron695 13y ago
  And it a good parable about the real issue, how most people are selfish and will only 'help' it they get something back IE Get to meet a star fish they 'saved' Reality is the star fish are all fine come next tide but the boy goes home thinking he's done a good dead, in reality having done nothing but made himself feel better. The old man is probably wise and realises the issue is bigger than throwing a star fish in the ocean and is probably sad. He too might do nothing, but I'd like to think ever now and again one or two of these wise old people actually does something that saves millions and has a real effect on the world. Maybe something like creating a site like Watsi.
cuttooth 13y ago
Way to shill for yourself. "But along with the cash, Watsi has also raised eyebrows. To some critics, there’s something distinctly neocolonialist and off-putting about the spectacle of well-off do-gooders in the U.S. choosing which brown people live and die in the developing world based on who has a cuter picture on Watsi. Others wonder whether focusing donations on individuals, no matter how worthy, diverts funding and attention from efforts aimed at tackling the more systemic causes of inadequate healthcare in impoverished parts of the world. Watsi must also bear the misfortune of coming of age during a simmering backlash against Silicon Valley. We’ve gotten tired of hearing the name brand Silicon Valley bigwigs who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Watsi talk about the merits of “disrupting” existing industries, when all that really seems to end up happening is that a few people get rich while the competitive screws tighten on the many." You have an urge to save a life? Make a direct donation yourself or to one of the hundreds of charities that exist. Some charities are certainly better than others, but the options are out there. Watsi is a pathetic excuse for a "company" where this sort of pick-and-choose comes across as a form of good when it's really quite creepy and saddening. Startups don't need to exist in order to do good, and you don't need to hide behind the veil of backing a company in order to seem like a good person. Give someone the money yourself or go visit those countries if you really give a shit, because there's more to their problems than individuals who happen to need medical care. Most of them don't have any at all.
- pg 13y ago
  If you're going to be this nasty, you'd better be right, and in this case you're not. If I went in person to Nepal to find people who need help, I still wouldn't do as good a job as Watsi. The one useful thing about your comment is that it gives us a way to measure the background radiation of mean-spiritedness online. Watsi is about as good as anything ever gets. The founders are as selfless as anyone I've known. And they are not merely unrealistic do-gooders. They know well what things are like in the field. If people wholly focused on doing good and very effective at it still manage to get attacked online, that's therefore the baseline for being attacked online.
  - cuttooth 13y ago
mcphilip 13y ago
I wonder what would be the impact on the amount of funding if donors were only shown pictures of patients after choosing to donate? Say donors could still get the rest of the demographics data, just not a picture. Would this lead to "non-photogenic" patients receiving equal care? Or is the "non-photogenic" patient issue not a problem in the first place?
- sspiff 13y ago
  Why not show "popular" photos more often, with a little footer at the bottom "picture might not match the saved person", with the rest of the information be accurate. For me, the fact that it would save more lives would compensate for the lying to people.
- ryusage 13y ago
  I'm not convinced the the problem you're concerned about actually exists. I just donated to two people, and one of my criteria for deciding who (since it was mostly arbitrary) was "who looks like they need it most?" At least in my mind, the less 'photogenic' they are, the more they seem like they could use some help.
- superluminary 13y ago
  Everyone on the site gets funded, even the non-photogenic ones. It's quite well thought through.
timmyelliot 13y ago
Because of that title alone, I won't click. Yeah, I'm probably being shallow, but I take it as a challenge to my personal illusion that I'm not easily manipulated.
- shire 13y ago
  You're not even curious to click it?
  - donpdonp 13y ago
    As soon as the title enters the 'one weird trick' zone, which this title does, the link gets ignored. Though I did bother to read the hackernews comments about the story :).
- floydenstein 13y ago
  Unless that was their plan all along, in which case, you fell for it.
  - ianstallings 13y ago
    In poker, we call that leveling. Damn it! Now I have to read it. I won't go through life knowing someone failed to coerce me.
    - mistercow 13y ago
      "Harry, smiling, had asked Professor Quirrell what level he played at, and Professor Quirrell, also smiling, had responded, One level higher than you."
- CrankyPants 13y ago
  You know, he's not being entirely unreasonable. When one considers that publications have people whose job it is to try to write link-baity titles, it doesn't always make sense for HN submissions to use the article's title. Consider: it's not infrequent that writers loathe the cotton-candy bait their articles are given.
dpweb 13y ago
Watsi really stands out as a startup that's really doing some good. Let's be honest, most startups you read about aren't really a measurable positive force in the world. Only in a "first-world" country would be imaginable the complaint, "people in rich countries deciding who gets treatment in poor countries" shameful! Only an idiot would make that judgement. The PICTURES make it real. Real human beings. It encourages people to give. I'm no bleeding heart, but more VCs, entrepreneurs, and (especially) people of means should be using more of their vast resources to start and promote more things like Watsi.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- king_jester 13y ago
  > Only in a "first-world" country would be imaginable the complaint, "people in rich countries deciding who gets treatment in poor countries" shameful! Only an idiot would make that judgement. That judgement is actually quite accurate. Watsi may do something good, but it does work with existing charities to provide medical services. Why charity is needed and the role charity plays in systemic issues in this and other countries is an important thing to examine.
pg 13y ago
Subtitle: reporter tries and tries to remain mean in the face of the Watsis, but finds he just can't do it. Reading this article was like watching someone try to break into a really secure system. The reporter tried every trick in the book, and none worked. I went back and counted the number of different avenues along which he tried to attack, and there were no less than 11: Watsi's office, Chase's language, neocolonialism, race, the focus on patient care, Silicon Valley, California idealism, Watsi's investors, how real the connection is between donor and patient, why they don't fund patients in the US, and the realism of Chase's dreams. The dude is like a cynicism machine. What's interesting about this guy though is that he's not unique in this respect. He merely represents the default/lazy reporter m.o. taken to such an extreme that it becomes a caricature. Controversy generates page views, and it's really easy to create. In his case I'm sure this is not an act, but an instance of someone's personality being naturally well suited to the work he's doing. But those of you who might one day have to deal with the press might want to keep this article in mind as an example.
- mcphilip 13y ago
  I read the article having never heard of Watsi. To me it read as proactively addressing concerns I may encounter when considering participation. I came away with a very positive view of Watsi and have visited the website and started doing more research. Who knows, this is just one person's take, but I found the article beneficial.
  - loganfrederick 13y ago
    I see both mcphilip and pg's sides. I did not think the article was written to make a negative point. Like PG said, the author seems to like Chase and Watsi, but had to present some counterarguments people could make against such a company. PG's comment is more applicable to journalism in general. What's lamentable is that it's the job of journalists to present sides which are wrong or uninformed.
    - rsingel 13y ago
      Who says it the job of journalists to "present sides that are wrong or misinformed?" What you meant was that journalist shouldn't have a worldview different from mine. He didn't have to present those views -- those were his concerns or ones he considered valid.
GuiA 13y ago
I donated through Watsi for the first time yesterday. A few hours later, I received an email saying that the patient I had funded had raised all the money she needed to get her medical care. That was a pretty great feeling. I certainly won't miss the $20 I gave, and I got to see how they would make a concrete difference for someone who didn't get as lucky as I in the humanity lottery. If my memory serves me right, this is the first time I've ever given to a charity (I've donated to Wikileaks when they had server cost issues, that's the only other instance I remember - having been a student for most of my adult life so far, I never really had the disposable income for donations). When people approach me on the street to give money for their organization X, I find it extremely invasive and have no concrete desire to give. How do I know my money is actually going to serve a real purpose? I love how transparent Watsi is, and how I can trust my donation to have a real meaning.I really hope they're around for a long, long time.
jackgavigan 13y ago
The direct connection between donor and beneficiary is an interesting new business model for the charity sector. In the UK, several large humanitarian aid charities have been put under the spotlight after it was revealed that 30 charity executives are paid over £100,000 (over $150,000)[1]. If a charity can guarantee (and, ideally, show evidence ex post facto) that 100% of my donation will go to the program/activity/whatever I want to support, and that their administration overheads will be covered from other funding sources (e.g. corporate donations), that would eliminate any concern I might have that a large chuck of my donation would end up being spent on swanky offices and fat-cat executives. There is a big opportunity here for Watsi to build a platform that can be re-purposed for other types of charitable activities. 1: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-charities-hit-back-at-salary-criticism-after-revelation-that-30-bosses-paid-more-than-100000-a-year-8747591.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-charities-...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kyro 13y ago
Love what Watsi is doing. Do you guys plan on crowdfunding for larger initiatives in the future, like shipping vitamins, drugs, condoms, etc to third-world countries?
- jc00ke 13y ago
  No, we're focused on treatment, not prevention. We have funded a few malnutrition cases, and we would like to fund more, but prevention isn't really our thing. There are other orgs, like the Gates Foundation, that are doing a great job at tackling that side of the coin.
ipince 13y ago
"the way Watsi works is that we accept every single patient’s profile before the patient receives care. Just like an insurance company. We’re not retroactively approving things. We guarantee funding. We won’t take a profile down until it is fully funded. No other crowd-funding platform that I know of works this way.” Isn't this exactly how Kiva works? AFAIK, profiles on Kiva have already received funding from their respective microlending institution. Kiva then pays the microlending institution from the funds they raised. That's a reason why repayment rates are so high; the borrowers have already been vetted and given the loan... http://www.kiva.org/about/how/even-more http://www.kiva.org/about/how/even-more
- kmfrk 13y ago
  Watsi doesn't take loans, and focuses entirely on healthcare, from what I understand. I think the narrow focus is part of the charm of Watsi.
  - ipince 13y ago
    Sure... What I meant to point out is that the model is that everyone that appears on the website has already been funded. This is the same model Kiva uses, and the model can be a little misleading for people who think they're actually crowdfunding someone's health/loan. The health coverage or loan has already happened by the time the users see the faces of the beneficiaries on the site.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I have no idea why this level of detail is interesting to donors. Money is fungible, and it is a reasonable and accurate assumption that a donation that you make to a particular Watsi patient is enabling treatment for that person.
      - ipince 13y ago
        Couple things: - Donors use some criteria to decide which person to give money to. I guess this is more relevant to Kiva than Watsi, where a donor potentially evaluates the project the loan is funding, its potential for success, etc. In reality, your decision doesn't make (that much) difference at that point. The loan is already out. - More importantly to me, when I found about about this model, I just felt misled. I felt tricked into believing something that wasn't true, and it made me slightly lose trust in the company. Not a big deal, I still fully support them and recognize that the model works, but it can be kind of misleading to donors.
adammil 13y ago
Watsi wants your credit card number including CVV to simply register for an account. This is before choosing anyone to fund. How about I only provide payment information at "check out" instead?
- gracegarey 13y ago
  Sorry if this is unclear, but you don't need to create an account at all to donate. All you have to do is enter an amount and click "Fund Treatment." Creating an account just saves your payment info for quick checkout in the future.
JimmyM 13y ago
They don't seem to do GiftAid - is that because it's based in America, or could they theoretically claim GiftAid from the tax I pay? http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/individuals/giving/gift-aid.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/individuals/giving/gift-aid.htm
- jc00ke 13y ago
  We just learned about GiftAid not too long ago. I'll pass this on to our finance guy to take a look, thanks!
adammil 13y ago
If anyone from Watsi is reading, your auto-replies for Contact Us are still saying this: "Thanks for the message! Our entire team is currently in Nepal and will be slow / unable to respond to email until Wednesday, 9/4. Looking forward to connecting with you."
- gracegarey 13y ago
  Fixed!
ahk 13y ago
'Brown people' hospitals will just raise prices if they know patients have 'white people' funds. So this has the potential to make medical care inaccessible to those not having 'proper connections' to 'white people'.
- unimpressive 13y ago
  Watsi is only used in extraordinary cases. (Otherwise they would have plenty of patients for people to fund.) I doubt that the money they're pouring into 'Brown people' hospitals is even a dent in their total volume of revenue. IIRC, the patients aren't even told Watsi is an option until a doctor on the ground identifies them as a potential candidate.
tptacek 13y ago
To the article's concern about selecting specific patients to donate to: I actually have the same problem, and found myself (irrationally) trying to pick the least photogenic or narratively appealing patients to donate to, and then giving up and spreading donations across the whole pool of patients†. And my point is: Watsi should have a button that would, at some minimum donation floor, fund every patient equally. Make it a little expensive! I would push that button every time, and you'd be harnessing a broken part of my thought process to make me make better decisions. Also: man, does Watsi need an API. We're doing more public contests soon! Big ones! It would be freaking awesome if I could plug my analytics stuff directly into Watsi so I could make automatic donations. † Before you assume this is some kind of humblebrag, know that I'm not donating my own money; we send $20 to Watsi for everyone who finishes our crypto challenges, which are a lot of work, so in a real sense it's the challenge-takers who are doing the funding here.
- redthrowaway 13y ago
  You've just motivated me to get off my ass and find that email where you sent me the first batch of challenges. Thanks.
- tchock23 13y ago
  An API would be awesome. I actually have a specific project kicking around in the back of my mind that I would launch solely around a Watsi API. Here's to hoping they see this thread...
stevewilhelm 13y ago
I would really like to see Watsi team up with Partners In Health http://www.pih.org http://www.pih.org , my favorite health related charity.
- tptacek 13y ago
  They already do!!! They have, from the jump!
leefrank 13y ago
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tchock23 13y ago
When I first heard about Watsi, absolutely none of the author's negative points entered my mind. Now I'm kind of pissed that I'll think about them when I think of Watsi. It doesn't change my donation behavior, but just makes me angry at this kind of journalism.
mistercow 13y ago
>To some critics, there’s something distinctly neocolonialist and off-putting about the spectacle of well-off do-gooders in the U.S. choosing which brown people live and die in the developing world based on who has a cuter picture on Watsi. Given that they're having trouble keeping up with donor demand, that hardly seems like a problem, at least for now. And just as the pictures and stories are a clever hack to get people to donate and allow them to feel more meaning from their donations, I'm sure that more hacks can be invented to get more money to the less cute patients if that becomes a problem in the future.

157 points by pg 13y ago

To this inevitable complaint: Others wonder whether focusing donations on individuals, no matter how worthy, diverts funding and attention from efforts aimed at tackling the more systemic causes of inadequate healthcare in impoverished parts of the world. I can only respond with "The Starfish Parable": One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one. Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, "I'm saving these starfish, Sir". The old man chuckled aloud, "Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?" The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, "It made a difference to that one!"

cgag 13y ago
It's more like "with the same effort you could save thousands of starfish, just not the ones right in front of you" than "what difference can you make". Which is certainly something worth considering.
- justinsteele 13y ago
  Can you? If we took the money donated to Watsi, let these people suffer/die instead, and used it all to solve an "underlying problem" - would it help more people? Without a lot of research that answer seems difficult to get to. I think in the interim, helping these people is a fine use of some people's disposable income. Also, consider that money going to Watsi does not necessarily stop money going to a different/more effective cause. Many people donating to this may not donate to a different idea, and vice versa.
  - cgag 13y ago
    I'm not necessarily talking about solving underlying problems like lack of good healthcare, I was actually just thinking about the idea that if you have 1000 dollars to give, it's worth considering the trade offs between giving it to one person for a surgery, or buy 200 bed nets to protect people from malaria or protect 200 kids from developmental problems caused by parasitic worms: http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities.
    - JoshuaDavid 13y ago
      It actually seems to be a fairly close call. It seems that bed nets prevent about 1 death from malaria for every $2000 or so [1], whereas the quality of life of some of the Watsi patients can be significantly improved for $500 to $1000 [see 2]. So the question is what the relative value of each is, and while I think the balance weighs in favor of malaria prevention, it's not a clear-cut decision. [1] http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/insecticide-treated-nets http://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/ins... [2] https://watsi.org/profile/8d8d49907cc9-hussein https://watsi.org/profile/8d8d49907cc9-hussein
- nknighthb 13y ago
  The world's systemic problems are almost entirely political in nature. Unless you want to try mass bribery, your monetary donations aren't going to fix those.
  - cgag 13y ago
    This isn't exactly what I meant, but it's not infeasible either. I have a friend whos working on a charity to help people give conditional donations to political campaigns, like only giving money to a politician on the condition they vote yes on bill x, or having your donation divided equally among people who voted against marijuana prohibitions. In which case, it might be more effective to do something like this than to donate to a defense fund for people accused of weed related crimes.
kyro 13y ago
Yeah, this is one of the criticisms I hate the most. In a world with Watsi and without, the former is a measurably better place.
aaron695 13y ago
And it a good parable about the real issue, how most people are selfish and will only 'help' it they get something back IE Get to meet a star fish they 'saved' Reality is the star fish are all fine come next tide but the boy goes home thinking he's done a good dead, in reality having done nothing but made himself feel better. The old man is probably wise and realises the issue is bigger than throwing a star fish in the ocean and is probably sad. He too might do nothing, but I'd like to think ever now and again one or two of these wise old people actually does something that saves millions and has a real effect on the world. Maybe something like creating a site like Watsi.

cuttooth 13y ago

Way to shill for yourself. "But along with the cash, Watsi has also raised eyebrows. To some critics, there’s something distinctly neocolonialist and off-putting about the spectacle of well-off do-gooders in the U.S. choosing which brown people live and die in the developing world based on who has a cuter picture on Watsi. Others wonder whether focusing donations on individuals, no matter how worthy, diverts funding and attention from efforts aimed at tackling the more systemic causes of inadequate healthcare in impoverished parts of the world. Watsi must also bear the misfortune of coming of age during a simmering backlash against Silicon Valley. We’ve gotten tired of hearing the name brand Silicon Valley bigwigs who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Watsi talk about the merits of “disrupting” existing industries, when all that really seems to end up happening is that a few people get rich while the competitive screws tighten on the many." You have an urge to save a life? Make a direct donation yourself or to one of the hundreds of charities that exist. Some charities are certainly better than others, but the options are out there. Watsi is a pathetic excuse for a "company" where this sort of pick-and-choose comes across as a form of good when it's really quite creepy and saddening. Startups don't need to exist in order to do good, and you don't need to hide behind the veil of backing a company in order to seem like a good person. Give someone the money yourself or go visit those countries if you really give a shit, because there's more to their problems than individuals who happen to need medical care. Most of them don't have any at all.

pg 13y ago
If you're going to be this nasty, you'd better be right, and in this case you're not. If I went in person to Nepal to find people who need help, I still wouldn't do as good a job as Watsi. The one useful thing about your comment is that it gives us a way to measure the background radiation of mean-spiritedness online. Watsi is about as good as anything ever gets. The founders are as selfless as anyone I've known. And they are not merely unrealistic do-gooders. They know well what things are like in the field. If people wholly focused on doing good and very effective at it still manage to get attacked online, that's therefore the baseline for being attacked online.
- cuttooth 13y ago

mcphilip 13y ago

I wonder what would be the impact on the amount of funding if donors were only shown pictures of patients after choosing to donate? Say donors could still get the rest of the demographics data, just not a picture. Would this lead to "non-photogenic" patients receiving equal care? Or is the "non-photogenic" patient issue not a problem in the first place?

sspiff 13y ago
Why not show "popular" photos more often, with a little footer at the bottom "picture might not match the saved person", with the rest of the information be accurate. For me, the fact that it would save more lives would compensate for the lying to people.
ryusage 13y ago
I'm not convinced the the problem you're concerned about actually exists. I just donated to two people, and one of my criteria for deciding who (since it was mostly arbitrary) was "who looks like they need it most?" At least in my mind, the less 'photogenic' they are, the more they seem like they could use some help.
superluminary 13y ago
Everyone on the site gets funded, even the non-photogenic ones. It's quite well thought through.

timmyelliot 13y ago

Because of that title alone, I won't click. Yeah, I'm probably being shallow, but I take it as a challenge to my personal illusion that I'm not easily manipulated.

shire 13y ago
You're not even curious to click it?
- donpdonp 13y ago
  As soon as the title enters the 'one weird trick' zone, which this title does, the link gets ignored. Though I did bother to read the hackernews comments about the story :).
floydenstein 13y ago
Unless that was their plan all along, in which case, you fell for it.
- ianstallings 13y ago
  In poker, we call that leveling. Damn it! Now I have to read it. I won't go through life knowing someone failed to coerce me.
  - mistercow 13y ago
    "Harry, smiling, had asked Professor Quirrell what level he played at, and Professor Quirrell, also smiling, had responded, One level higher than you."
CrankyPants 13y ago
You know, he's not being entirely unreasonable. When one considers that publications have people whose job it is to try to write link-baity titles, it doesn't always make sense for HN submissions to use the article's title. Consider: it's not infrequent that writers loathe the cotton-candy bait their articles are given.

dpweb 13y ago

Watsi really stands out as a startup that's really doing some good. Let's be honest, most startups you read about aren't really a measurable positive force in the world. Only in a "first-world" country would be imaginable the complaint, "people in rich countries deciding who gets treatment in poor countries" shameful! Only an idiot would make that judgement. The PICTURES make it real. Real human beings. It encourages people to give. I'm no bleeding heart, but more VCs, entrepreneurs, and (especially) people of means should be using more of their vast resources to start and promote more things like Watsi.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
king_jester 13y ago
> Only in a "first-world" country would be imaginable the complaint, "people in rich countries deciding who gets treatment in poor countries" shameful! Only an idiot would make that judgement. That judgement is actually quite accurate. Watsi may do something good, but it does work with existing charities to provide medical services. Why charity is needed and the role charity plays in systemic issues in this and other countries is an important thing to examine.

pg 13y ago

Subtitle: reporter tries and tries to remain mean in the face of the Watsis, but finds he just can't do it. Reading this article was like watching someone try to break into a really secure system. The reporter tried every trick in the book, and none worked. I went back and counted the number of different avenues along which he tried to attack, and there were no less than 11: Watsi's office, Chase's language, neocolonialism, race, the focus on patient care, Silicon Valley, California idealism, Watsi's investors, how real the connection is between donor and patient, why they don't fund patients in the US, and the realism of Chase's dreams. The dude is like a cynicism machine. What's interesting about this guy though is that he's not unique in this respect. He merely represents the default/lazy reporter m.o. taken to such an extreme that it becomes a caricature. Controversy generates page views, and it's really easy to create. In his case I'm sure this is not an act, but an instance of someone's personality being naturally well suited to the work he's doing. But those of you who might one day have to deal with the press might want to keep this article in mind as an example.

mcphilip 13y ago
I read the article having never heard of Watsi. To me it read as proactively addressing concerns I may encounter when considering participation. I came away with a very positive view of Watsi and have visited the website and started doing more research. Who knows, this is just one person's take, but I found the article beneficial.
- loganfrederick 13y ago
  I see both mcphilip and pg's sides. I did not think the article was written to make a negative point. Like PG said, the author seems to like Chase and Watsi, but had to present some counterarguments people could make against such a company. PG's comment is more applicable to journalism in general. What's lamentable is that it's the job of journalists to present sides which are wrong or uninformed.
  - rsingel 13y ago
    Who says it the job of journalists to "present sides that are wrong or misinformed?" What you meant was that journalist shouldn't have a worldview different from mine. He didn't have to present those views -- those were his concerns or ones he considered valid.

GuiA 13y ago

I donated through Watsi for the first time yesterday. A few hours later, I received an email saying that the patient I had funded had raised all the money she needed to get her medical care. That was a pretty great feeling. I certainly won't miss the $20 I gave, and I got to see how they would make a concrete difference for someone who didn't get as lucky as I in the humanity lottery. If my memory serves me right, this is the first time I've ever given to a charity (I've donated to Wikileaks when they had server cost issues, that's the only other instance I remember - having been a student for most of my adult life so far, I never really had the disposable income for donations). When people approach me on the street to give money for their organization X, I find it extremely invasive and have no concrete desire to give. How do I know my money is actually going to serve a real purpose? I love how transparent Watsi is, and how I can trust my donation to have a real meaning.I really hope they're around for a long, long time.

jackgavigan 13y ago

The direct connection between donor and beneficiary is an interesting new business model for the charity sector. In the UK, several large humanitarian aid charities have been put under the spotlight after it was revealed that 30 charity executives are paid over £100,000 (over $150,000)[1]. If a charity can guarantee (and, ideally, show evidence ex post facto) that 100% of my donation will go to the program/activity/whatever I want to support, and that their administration overheads will be covered from other funding sources (e.g. corporate donations), that would eliminate any concern I might have that a large chuck of my donation would end up being spent on swanky offices and fat-cat executives. There is a big opportunity here for Watsi to build a platform that can be re-purposed for other types of charitable activities. 1: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-charities-hit-back-at-salary-criticism-after-revelation-that-30-bosses-paid-more-than-100000-a-year-8747591.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-charities-...

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kyro 13y ago

Love what Watsi is doing. Do you guys plan on crowdfunding for larger initiatives in the future, like shipping vitamins, drugs, condoms, etc to third-world countries?

jc00ke 13y ago
No, we're focused on treatment, not prevention. We have funded a few malnutrition cases, and we would like to fund more, but prevention isn't really our thing. There are other orgs, like the Gates Foundation, that are doing a great job at tackling that side of the coin.

ipince 13y ago

"the way Watsi works is that we accept every single patient’s profile before the patient receives care. Just like an insurance company. We’re not retroactively approving things. We guarantee funding. We won’t take a profile down until it is fully funded. No other crowd-funding platform that I know of works this way.” Isn't this exactly how Kiva works? AFAIK, profiles on Kiva have already received funding from their respective microlending institution. Kiva then pays the microlending institution from the funds they raised. That's a reason why repayment rates are so high; the borrowers have already been vetted and given the loan... http://www.kiva.org/about/how/even-more http://www.kiva.org/about/how/even-more

kmfrk 13y ago
Watsi doesn't take loans, and focuses entirely on healthcare, from what I understand. I think the narrow focus is part of the charm of Watsi.
- ipince 13y ago
  Sure... What I meant to point out is that the model is that everyone that appears on the website has already been funded. This is the same model Kiva uses, and the model can be a little misleading for people who think they're actually crowdfunding someone's health/loan. The health coverage or loan has already happened by the time the users see the faces of the beneficiaries on the site.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I have no idea why this level of detail is interesting to donors. Money is fungible, and it is a reasonable and accurate assumption that a donation that you make to a particular Watsi patient is enabling treatment for that person.
    - ipince 13y ago
      Couple things: - Donors use some criteria to decide which person to give money to. I guess this is more relevant to Kiva than Watsi, where a donor potentially evaluates the project the loan is funding, its potential for success, etc. In reality, your decision doesn't make (that much) difference at that point. The loan is already out. - More importantly to me, when I found about about this model, I just felt misled. I felt tricked into believing something that wasn't true, and it made me slightly lose trust in the company. Not a big deal, I still fully support them and recognize that the model works, but it can be kind of misleading to donors.

adammil 13y ago

Watsi wants your credit card number including CVV to simply register for an account. This is before choosing anyone to fund. How about I only provide payment information at "check out" instead?

gracegarey 13y ago
Sorry if this is unclear, but you don't need to create an account at all to donate. All you have to do is enter an amount and click "Fund Treatment." Creating an account just saves your payment info for quick checkout in the future.

JimmyM 13y ago

They don't seem to do GiftAid - is that because it's based in America, or could they theoretically claim GiftAid from the tax I pay? http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/individuals/giving/gift-aid.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/individuals/giving/gift-aid.htm

jc00ke 13y ago
We just learned about GiftAid not too long ago. I'll pass this on to our finance guy to take a look, thanks!

adammil 13y ago

If anyone from Watsi is reading, your auto-replies for Contact Us are still saying this: "Thanks for the message! Our entire team is currently in Nepal and will be slow / unable to respond to email until Wednesday, 9/4. Looking forward to connecting with you."

gracegarey 13y ago
Fixed!

ahk 13y ago

'Brown people' hospitals will just raise prices if they know patients have 'white people' funds. So this has the potential to make medical care inaccessible to those not having 'proper connections' to 'white people'.

unimpressive 13y ago
Watsi is only used in extraordinary cases. (Otherwise they would have plenty of patients for people to fund.) I doubt that the money they're pouring into 'Brown people' hospitals is even a dent in their total volume of revenue. IIRC, the patients aren't even told Watsi is an option until a doctor on the ground identifies them as a potential candidate.

tptacek 13y ago

To the article's concern about selecting specific patients to donate to: I actually have the same problem, and found myself (irrationally) trying to pick the least photogenic or narratively appealing patients to donate to, and then giving up and spreading donations across the whole pool of patients†. And my point is: Watsi should have a button that would, at some minimum donation floor, fund every patient equally. Make it a little expensive! I would push that button every time, and you'd be harnessing a broken part of my thought process to make me make better decisions. Also: man, does Watsi need an API. We're doing more public contests soon! Big ones! It would be freaking awesome if I could plug my analytics stuff directly into Watsi so I could make automatic donations. † Before you assume this is some kind of humblebrag, know that I'm not donating my own money; we send $20 to Watsi for everyone who finishes our crypto challenges, which are a lot of work, so in a real sense it's the challenge-takers who are doing the funding here.

redthrowaway 13y ago
You've just motivated me to get off my ass and find that email where you sent me the first batch of challenges. Thanks.
tchock23 13y ago
An API would be awesome. I actually have a specific project kicking around in the back of my mind that I would launch solely around a Watsi API. Here's to hoping they see this thread...

stevewilhelm 13y ago

I would really like to see Watsi team up with Partners In Health http://www.pih.org http://www.pih.org , my favorite health related charity.

tptacek 13y ago
They already do!!! They have, from the jump!

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tchock23 13y ago

When I first heard about Watsi, absolutely none of the author's negative points entered my mind. Now I'm kind of pissed that I'll think about them when I think of Watsi. It doesn't change my donation behavior, but just makes me angry at this kind of journalism.

mistercow 13y ago

>To some critics, there’s something distinctly neocolonialist and off-putting about the spectacle of well-off do-gooders in the U.S. choosing which brown people live and die in the developing world based on who has a cuter picture on Watsi. Given that they're having trouble keeping up with donor demand, that hardly seems like a problem, at least for now. And just as the pictures and stories are a clever hack to get people to donate and allow them to feel more meaning from their donations, I'm sure that more hacks can be invented to get more money to the less cute patients if that becomes a problem in the future.