I learned a lot on my journey of entrepreneurship - mostly heavy stories, and I sometimes wondered if I would just break and rant about how hard it was, or worse, to give up.
That is not possible.
I will now share with you want I learned most: the economic failure of a heavily segmented system comes from the losing hope of bottom segments. It is not the day a system start laughing at its bottom members that dooms its failure, but the day it cuts out any way for the bottom to climb up.
It places many glass ceilings and forces the bottom or the new comers to think they are inherently weak and hopeless.
That is the cancer for any economic or social system.
System-wise it freezes and corrupts the system, and moral-wise it is against the fundamental human nature - humans are born equal. If you have encountered any system that strangles your hope because of your gender, race, language… you are looking at one of them.
Remember when they laugh at you, it is not yet the time, but when they try desperately to suffocate you, you are about to win.
1.
THE LONG TAIL
Now you may ask, “What does this have to do with crowdfunding?”
Let’s take art as an example. Art is a very late stage installment for an economic system. Why? Because when an economic system starts to boom, you would first observe the economic rising, and then the technology comes, and in the end the society enters a period of culture accumulation. After this sequence, if the society is not in decline, the culture accumulation can foster another technological burst.
What is the characteristic of a late stage installment? It is very segmented.
The long tail will be very long there, and the head will try everything it can to contain the long tail in order to continue to enjoy its privileges. Take this cute dinosaur as an example:
The dinosaur is from SEO, but let’s imagine how the head takes most of the resources, and the tail, with most of the population, are fighting for what is left.
Crowdfunding is growing more and more popular in all creative domains, however, in some highly segmented domains, say Classical music, if you use crowdfunding to make your CD, you will still be considered low quality by the mainstream in the Classical music circle.
For all the friends out there that are in Classical music, this is one of the glass ceilings they have prepared for you, to prevent you to enter the head circle.
“You are producing low quality music, so you use crowdfunding.” This is a “laugh”, so hold on there, and don’t be too disturbed by it, for you have at least scratched the surface.
Let’s take a look at why crowdfunding can scratch the surface at least (don’t be too optimistic, and also don’t lose hope). To see this problem clearly, we need to see what exactly is crowdfunding.
2.
WHAT IS CROWDFUNDING
Crowdfunding is the transformation between social capital and monetary capital.
Which means if you have social capital, you can transform it into monetary capital.
Can crowdfunding provide a way for the weak and the bottom to have hope and grow strong? 5% more hope I would say, better than no hope at all, because social capital is heavily segmented, and monetary capital can easily translate into social capital.
Growing strong is a game of accumulating capital. Suppose you are nobody. Let’s see what kind of capital you can attempt to accumulate, and remember when you do so, the entire world is against you, even if you are not even close to take away their capital, but only to live with dignity for yourself. Their fear is against you.
Knowledge Capital - This capital has a lower and lower threshold nowadays because of the internet. So I strongly suggest you accumulate it regardless of your situation, as it may one day come in handy.
However, this capital has a sometimes creepy genetic threshold… Some believe geniuses can get knowledge in a rather unfair way against normal people.
To many, it seems that the geniuses are born to be so.
On the knowledge capital, I would stand on the side of the geniuses, for different societies have long devised ways to balance out the unfair amount of knowledge capital geniuses seem to have. Most of the time the geniuses kill themselves, so, life is never easy for them anyways.
Knowledge capital is in fact a rather fair capital, for the threshold is lowering.
Social Capital - This capital has long been held by people with monetary capital, until social media lowered its threshold. However, as social media grew mainstream, many social media systems demonstrate a rather segmented nature, where new comers of social media are now incrementally hard to grow their fan base.
The only system I know of - which still deliberately trying to minimize this effect is Wikipedia, with one of the rules being “Be open and welcoming to newcomers”.
Social capital is a bit more liquid than monetary capital, because things like moral and faith can transform into social capital, so is knowledge and competence. Competence, knowledge and social capital can transform into monetary capital. However, in monetary capital, the one that transform most easily is: you are born rich.
Therefore, if you are at the long tail and wish to have a better opportunities for yourself - I would say opportunity, not life, because when you are blocked by glass ceilings, you may even have a good life, but you are never able to be who you could have been. The opportunity cost is unbelievable — transforming different capitals to grow yourself is a potential way up. It is just one more tool, even though it can’t guarantee your success.
3.
WHY CROWDFUNDING SHOULD BE FREE
Well, let’s get back to the topic of why should crowdfunding be free.
I don’t see the reason why it shouldn’t.
It is like asking why Facebook should be free.
Is it because social is a basic human need and it is hard to imagine anyone to charge for it? Well, apparently social is hardly ever free…
The reason why many internet services can be free is because the server fees are relatively fixed (not completely fixed of course), while the marginal profit from the content can vary.
The biggest challenge comes from the fact that the company has to actually worth the money and display the potential to create profit. Free to use has been associated with low quality and dying, at least in the game industry, but not on things we believe we can’t live without… say Google or Facebook.
4.
ON CROWDFUNDING SECURITY
The recent leak of Patreon’s data has created some panic.
On Ratafire, there are no anonymous donors, and there are very clear donation limits, so there are no huge amount of anonymous donation to hide, or any sensitive anonymous donors to protect.
Of course all the credit card and personal info is not stored on Ratafire, but on payment gateways like PayPal, so there is no credit card info to steal.
If I have nothing to hide, I shall not fear the night. That is my personal opinion on hiding in general.
I don’t know whether that will make Ratafire saver for you to use. I only know that on Ratafire, it is impossible for one donor to control any creative’s life by just donating. I want Ratafire users to still be friends after they used Ratafire, not entering the relationship of investors and the invested.
As a programmer myself, I have respect for hackers’ work on keeping the internet more just in many ways. I am not a hacker, and I am not speaking for any hacker, I am just saying if you are just supporting your friend for his or her painting, you shouldn’t feel bad.
If you are attempting to use these platforms, including Patreon, to do something unacceptable, then you should feel afraid. On Ratafire, I have tired my best to keep it clean function-wise, and that wouldn’t change.
Anyways, hope this article can help you in someway. Most of it were just my recent thoughts. Until next time.
