[sycr]

I think that you might be discounting the value of Kickstarter's execution - or rather, a hypothetical Joss Whedon would be discounting the value of their execution.

In the same way that Twitter is "just a database of SMS messages", Kickstarter is just a "payment checkout" - but of course they are both greater than the sum of their parts.

[waterlesscloud]

They have value, of course. But I do think that on the upper end they might be forced to lower their percentage in time. If for no other reason than someone else will come along and compete at a lower rate.

Their execution isn't that hard to compete with, it can be commoditized with enough resources, and for someone with actual fame I don't think they increase the amount raised by much.

If not Whedon, think Lady Gaga or JK Rowling. What would Kickstarter offer them that some private white label processing service couldn't copy?

[ScottBurson]

Right. What you have to look at is, how much more money would he bring in by using Kickstarter? Hard to say for sure, of course, but Kickstarter is in a very good position now to argue that it's well over 5%.

Seems to me that for someone who doesn't already have a large fan base, a Kickstarter campaign could easily increase their take by a factor of 4 (if not 10 or 100 or 1000). For someone well-known like Whedon the factor will be smaller, but if it's 1.5 or even 1.2, the 5% fee is more than covered.