[ganeumann]

VCs are (as a class) not particularly good at identifying quality

The question is: why is that? Having been an investor and an entrepreneur, I certainly agree that VCs miss many good companies and fund many bad ones. But that's not for lack of trying, expertise, time spent, or motivation.

If you think that crowdfunding will do better than VCs (as a class), then you must either believe that the crowd has some ability that VCs can't develop (and what is that and why can't VCs develop it?) or that the crowd will simply fund everything regardless of quality.

I personally don't believe the first and am not sure the second is the best answer.

Personally, I think crowdfunding--especially as AngelList does it--could very well be the future of the seed/early A round. I don't think the crowd will get better returns than VCs, but I also think the crowd won't care very much about okay-but-not-great returns; that may be the reason it works.