[tomwalsham]

a) Trusted space for collecting backed pledges. Try doing that with PayPal and see how quickly you get shut down.

b) Well branded name with first-mover advantage which brings higher CTR on social campaigns.

c) Centralization of PR - contacts with traditional media which increase chance of mainstream coverage.

d) Volume of curated content makes it interesting to third-party developers, increasing 'virality' (see Twitter's media-in-post for any posted KickStarter link.

...

I could go on. It's pretty easy to build the same strawman argument against many businesses by focusing on a weakly analogous service and conveniently ignoring the laundry list of benefits. The whole 'socially interesting causes shouldn't be for-profit' argument is completely unsupported and drowned in pseudo-intellectual non-sequitur, which incidentally appears to be the raison d'être for this blog.

Name me another form of fundraising for arbitrary projects which doesn't require giving up significant equity at such an early stage. If you want a real target for a poorly-balanced funding arrangement maybe take aim at Dragon's Den. People who KickStart their projects are fully aware of what they're giving up for their seed capital - 5% of cash and no equity. Sounds pretty damn good to me.

[sp332]

A) is a thin wrapper around Amazon Payments.

B) gives KS an advantage in the market. But as the article mentions, it doesn't justify gouging your customers just because you can.

D) Is "curating" content really worth 5%? Would you pay e.g. HN 5% for 6 weeks for linking to your site?

[tomwalsham]

I hardly see it as gouging customers when they are happily, voluntarily entering into the agreement with full awareness of the terms and alternatives.

All of these poor souls were perfectly capable of setting up 'bobsdiyproject.org' and attempting to get popular support. Individuals trying to do this would have fixed up-front costs for developing all the 'little' stuff that KS does, zero access to an existing base of people interesting in paying, and no access to mainstream media to promote their idea.

The curation aspect is a large part of what creates value in KickStarter. The notion of 'SelfStarter' proposed in the blog completely misses the benefits to the community provided by centralised screening. If any and all projects were approved it would be chock full of scammers and opportunists with poor ideas - the SNR would be so low as to drive interest away.

Would I pay 5% of all cash raised specifically from HN members donating through a 6-week link to my project with no money upfront? Yes, absolutely. Zero-risk, $0 down traffic which only pays out if you hit your own projected goals?

Is Etsy a scam? Is eBay a scam? I'd say KickStarter has more favourable terms than these (still valuable) sites as they require money upfront regardless of the success of your listing.

[sp332]

I hardly see it as gouging customers when they are happily, voluntarily entering into the agreement with full awareness of the terms and alternatives.

This seems like the exact same defense the banks were using when they were foreclosing on homeowners. Of course such behavior is "allowed" by a free market. The question is: is this behavior morally defensible?

[ScottBurson]

5% is nothing, if using Kickstarter more than doubles the amount you can raise.

> Would you pay e.g. HN 5% for 6 weeks for linking to your site?

Hell yeah!

[powertower]

A 5% fee is not what I would call "gouging".