[zenogais]

I feel like those fields with highest facility needs / costs would come last if at all. There are many fields that require pretty small amounts of resources for example: Computer Science (I did most of my research on a personal laptop, with other equipment costs <$5,000), Mathematics, Philosophy, Economics, Psychology.

All of these seem very possible to crowdfund with the ultimate goal of unhooking them from perverse incentive systems of typical universities.

[apathy]

at least three of the above are in fact supported by experiment.com backers, although largely as a "bridge" to more traditional scholarly outlets. That said, if you go out and get extramural funding for your work, generally that is the definining characteristic of a successful PI, so...