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That's part of it -- also that a successful campaign can have serious harmful effects, because unless you have thousands of close friends who each give a dollar, you are putting yourself in serious debt that's much murkier (and thus harder to pay off) than a cleanly-written loan would be. If your friends and family really dig deep to pay your tuition to hacker bootcamp, even if you take to code like a duck to water and get into some really interesting projects, you still owe them, until you manage to dig deep in a roughly equivalent way for each of them. If you do really get a good start, that's some payoff for them (they bought you a big present, and it noticeably improved your life!), but you still owe them. And if you find yourself really not taking to coding -- you just don't have the eye for detail, your brain keeps fumbling the logic; there's too much meaningless trivia to navigate... well, now you're discouraged, you've wasted a big chunk of time, the nice present they bought you (at your request) turned out to be a bad one, AND you still owe them. Agreed on the general point to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, though, on principal! There are certainly some cases where this'll work nicely with few risks (e.g., a non-hacker with a large audience already who decides they want to give hacking a try -- or someone who's poor but has a lot of wealthy family & friends); and there are probably other interesting ideas with tweaks to the model -- funding in a pool with awards? I'm not sure, but best of luck in any case. |
Based on our current model, a fundraiser wouldn't have to pay back anyone that contributed funds toward their campaign. So we'd avoid that murky mess that comes with having a thousand micro loans to cover your tuition.
Adrian and I need to really think about some of the harmful effects brought on by the campaign. It's honestly something we haven't thought about too much, so I'm really grateful that you brought it up. Definitely deserves a lot of attention.