[nickff]

You are avoiding the essence of the parent's question, which is that both the 'crowdfunding' and the (currently illegal) unaccredited investment have similar risk profiles in many cases, with the same lack of reporting requirements, possibility of not returning anything, and likelihood of scams.

[andrewfong]

I thought I made clear what the distinction is: "In the specific case of crowdfunding, there's not too much worry that someone is going to blow large amounts of money on a Kickstarter if all they're getting out of it is a couple of Oculus Rift headsets. But if that Kickstarter could promise 1000x returns, that might be bad news for someone's college fund."

Put another way, although the risk profiles for crowdfunding and equity may be similar for any given amount of investment, the limited return on crowdfunding keeps any one investor from taking on too much risk.