3 ms·
I bought an early Oculus Rift developer kit as a part of the Kickstarter. I paid $300 for it and it was worth every penny. I had no expectation of equity from i
by garry 13y ago
I bought an early Oculus Rift developer kit as a part of the Kickstarter. I paid $300 for it and it was worth every penny. I had no expectation of equity from it, because the product was cool and something I wanted. It's the wrong thing to criticize Oculus Rift for the simple reason that hardware crowdfunding has unlocked a whole new world of things that could be built if only you could prove people want it.
The crowdfunding campaign Oculus Rift ran proved people wanted it. We see this over and over again — if you can create a new class of consumer behavior (Uber, Google, etc) then you can create a valuable company.
Articles like this are sensational in that they sometimes incite misguided lawmakers to regulate. But in this case, crowdfunding is creating new economic activity, and any new regulation would actively squelch that — and kill viable new products and companies in the process.
- pauleastlund 13y agoI get this "it was money in exchange for goods" point of view, and I certainly find this article stupid and misleading. But I'm still a little uneasy about what happened with Oculus, and the trouble that I have is, if you look at the the pledge levels, a lot of that money was nothing near a "cash-for-goods" exchange. 7 people pledged more than $5000 to get to meet the Oculus team. 100 people pledged $75 for a poster and a t-shirt. Those aren't purchases of goods for market prices; those are donations for token rewards, no different than when you give to public radio. Oculus solicited private donations to continue their work, and if the Facebook acquisition results in a dramatic change of direction for Oculus I think that will be a betrayal of donor trust.
- pfraze 13y ago> Oculus solicited private donations to continue their work, and if the Facebook acquisition results in a dramatic change of direction for Oculus I think that will be a betrayal of donor trust. That's what I think is the issue, not the equity. If Facebook's software is attached to the device, it's a different device (more like Google Glass) and I don't want to use it.