Monday, March 16, 2015

You’ve Got to be Kidding…

It was one of those moments when you just assume that someone on the Internet is having a joke, either on you or on the world in general. On one of the news aggregation sites I like to visit was a headline about a guy starting a crowdfunding appeal to raise money to follow his girlfriend to Miami for Spring Break – on the grounds that she would dump him if he doesn’t rush to her side. I hit the link hoping to find the legend “April Fools!” somewhere on the other side…

Unfortunately, there was no such comforting word. You can pick up the original story from the Washington Post site if you want to, but I’m afraid the headline was correct: “Boyfriend to crowdfunders: ‘Girlfriend will dump me unless you send me to Miami spring break.’” It turns out that the young man in our story is convinced that “the sun just melts all the morals in Miami,” and unless he is there to “overseeing all parties and fun activity for the duration of the trip” his relationship will be over. Post reporter Peter Holley (whose article provided all of the above quotes) recounts these events with a remarkably straight face, not even stooping to humor when the modest amount requested ($300 USD) falls short by more than two-thirds of the total ($91 out of $300 requested), which is definitely better than I could have managed in his place. But as humorous as this story appears, I do believe it is covering a more serious issue…

Done correctly, crowdsourcing is one of those very rare new ideas that really can change the world for the better. Just over the past few years we’ve seen dozens, or possibly hundreds, of business ventures that would never have been able to obtain finding through traditional channels assemble the capital needed to launch successful ventures. Audio, video and publishing projects that no one would ever have gotten to see have been produced; new technologies that could improve the quality of millions of lives have been developed, charitable projects have gotten the support to serve people who would otherwise have been neglected, and deserving companies have been able to go on providing jobs to their employees, goods and services to their communities, and an honest living to their owners. Unfortunately, not all of these stories have ended well…

Last summer we heard the story of the young man who decided to request $10 on Kickstarter to make potato salad – not thousands of dollars to feed the hungry, or even money for groceries until payday, but just enough money to make a bowl of potato salad to see if he could. He ended up with well over $50,000 and a vast chorus of critics, all denouncing the stunt and bemoaning the fact that crowdsourcing projects asking for money to pay medical bills or feed the hungry were being ignored in favor of a bowl of potato salad. If you look around any of the major crowdsourcing sites you will find dozens of projects just as silly as this one, and dozens more posted by people who really do need help and have nowhere else to turn, nearly all of which remain unfunded or even ignored. And every day, the number of people asking for your support increases, until eventually finding even one worthwhile project will take longer than anyone has to spend surfing the Web…

It makes you wonder how many worthwhile projects are never going to be heard of at all because someone is trying to convince people to help him follow a woman who may or may not actually be his significant other around on a vacation that she apparently took without him. Or, for that matter, because of any number of other cute, funny, silly, satiric, sarcastic, naïve, inappropriate or delusional projects that collectively make this wonderful new form of capital development that much harder to use for people who actually need help…

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