Kickstarter moving to blockchain

[RichGreen]

I sent them a mail where I voiced certain concerns regarding their plans. Got a regurgitated version of the info on the homepage back. Not ideal to say the least. It was also sent way too fast to be anything other than an automated response. The only things they pointed there was that backers/creators wouldn't notice anything different. Backers could pay with credit/debit cards, and creators would get ther money in fiat currencies as before (US Dollars, British Pounds, Euros etc)

I really hope that a human actually looks the feedback they get, but I am sceptical. I know from experience that normal support-issues are handled by a human, but those go to a different mail...

I got a reply telling me Celo (the blockchain they are using) is carbon neutral so nothing to worry about.

They only have 84 employees so hopefully they will become aware of how backers/creators feel pretty quickly. I think the VCs they are trying to attract with this won’t be very impressed that they are upsetting some of their most loyal customers either.

 

[Ulfgeir]

You think that they'd be a little more prone to listening to criticism, after the Patreon debacle.

What did I miss here?

 

[Ulfgeir]

Googled around a bit, and found some links elsewhere where more people are complaining about how bad idea this is.

Kotaku
Kickstarter Announces Blockchain Future, Doubles Down After Users Say 'No Thank You'

Cryptobriefing.com
Kickstarter Faces Backlash Over Partnership With Celo

Futurism.com
Kickstarter Creators Furious Over Company’s Move to Blockchain

Mashable.com

Kickstarter said it's moving to the blockchain, and creators are pissed

Decentralized frustration.

mashable.com

Dicebreaker.com

Tabletop creators wrestle with the cost of departing Kickstarter in wake of crypto plans

Planned move to blockchain in 2022 leaves designers and publishers desperately seeking viable alternatives to the industry’s dominant crowdfunding platform.

www.dicebreaker.com

And some mainstream business as well.. CNBC

Kickstarter, Discord and others are raving about ‘Web3.' Their users give them a reality check

The "Web3" movement aims to create a decentralized version of the internet. And big companies like Kickstarter and Discord want in.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Ryujin]

What did I miss here?

Patreon courted, and received, an infusion of venture capital cash so of course they had to show profitability. They announced that they were going to add a per transaction charge, on the patron side, to payments for creators. If you had a horde of $1-$2 Patreon contributions that you were making then suddently you were going to be paying 20-40% more per month. Not such a big deal if you had larger payments, to fewer creators, but substantial if you were an average person, supporting a bunch of creators, at a lower level. My own support costs would have jumped from roughly US$50.00/month to US$70.00 per month, by my calculations, with no increase in payments to those I support.

The whole idea was (edit: "seemed to be"; this is my assumption) that they wanted fewer but larger creators, presumably because it would require less infrastructure and internal costs to maintain them.

People left Patreon in droves. Creators moved to alternate platforms, if they could. Patreon soon walked back their statement but the damage had been done. Many supporters have never come back.

The Great Patreon Debacle, and What it Means for Independent Creators – Brendan Schlagel

www.brendanschlagel.com

 

[RealAlHazred]

And some mainstream business as well.. CNBC

Kickstarter, Discord and others are raving about ‘Web3.' Their users give them a reality check

The "Web3" movement aims to create a decentralized version of the internet. And big companies like Kickstarter and Discord want in.

www.cnbc.com

See, this one tickles the paranoiac who lives in the cave in the back part of my brain. Companies have wanted for years to "decentralize" the Internet, which resides on a massive number of servers connected via a massive number of informational "pipes," the "Intertubes" as we say in the business. (We don't, actually, that's a callback to a dumb thing a Senator said, back in prehistory.) If that system doesn't really sound centralized, well, it's really not. There are some major parts that are dependent on large companies -- for instance, when Amazon's services platform went down, it took a good chunk with it -- but the thing as a whole isn't really dependent on those parts.

What it's dependent on, primarily, and a main security concern, is DNS, domain name services. The companies that provide that service are fewer, and you could say they're the "central" portion of the Internet. When you say, "Computer, take me to Amazon.com," they're the servers that tell Majel Barrett Roddenberry where to go. And I don't see where you can replace just that part of the technology and still have the system work. What the stuff I've read online (and, maybe, barely comprehended, if at all) seems to be some idea to do that kind of service using the blockchain. Because DNS servers are high-traffic devices, they are also high-priority targets for hackers; a DNS-injection attack can be devastating. But, if anything, the blockchain seems to me to be fraught with a whole host of issues, and trust is one of them. Because everything's anonymized, there's no way to double-check anything.

It just seems like the buzzwords are clouding men's thoughts. Or maybe it's the idea of money clouding their thoughts, I don't know...

 

[Ryujin]

I'd say that companies don't want to decentralize the internet, they want to centralize it. To themselves. The internet is based on ARPANET, which was an experiment (among other things) in decentralization to provide communication in the event of a nuclear war.

 

[Ryujin]

Patreon courted, and received, an infusion of venture capital cash so of course they had to show profitability. They announced that they were going to add a per transaction charge, on the patron side, to payments for creators. If you had a horde of $1-$2 Patreon contributions that you were making then suddently you were going to be paying 20-40% more per month. Not such a big deal if you had larger payments, to fewer creators, but substantial if you were an average person, supporting a bunch of creators, at a lower level. My own support costs would have jumped from roughly US$50.00/month to US$70.00 per month, by my calculations, with no increase in payments to those I support.

The whole idea was (edit: "seemed to be"; this is my assumption) that they wanted fewer but larger creators, presumably because it would require less infrastructure and internal costs to maintain them.

People left Patreon in droves. Creators moved to alternate platforms, if they could. Patreon soon walked back their statement but the damage had been done. Many supporters have never come back.

The Great Patreon Debacle, and What it Means for Independent Creators – Brendan Schlagel

www.brendanschlagel.com

I should also add that this bungle by Patreon sparked the development of a Patreon-like service by Kickstarter, themselves, though the name of it escapes me at the moment. Another group of creatives formed The Fantasy Network with membership charges that directly support them, and with a Patreon-like system that they've been meaning to roll out for a while now. Two concrete examples of what I described.

 

[Umbran]

What the stuff I've read online (and, maybe, barely comprehended, if at all) seems to be some idea to do that kind of service using the blockchain.

Except that blockchain technology still relies on DNS to address where its packets go.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Doesn't Bitcoin pretty much exist to finance crime and human trafficking? I wouldn't want my money to go anywhere near it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Iirc, the people who verify the block chain will be paid in crypto and only people with significant crypto holdings can participate. And that's something I can't support.

That does sound pretty dodgy.