Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

blogs.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 121 posts

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#91

Post by res0nat0r »

anigbrowl wrote: post #60
martinald wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that would work. It would seriously diminish the possibility of kickstarter-based companies ever raising crowd funded funding.

But most people go to Kickstarter to fund the development of a particular product, not to boost the corporate entity that produces it. I mean, it's not that Kickstarter buyers are against people earning a living and making a profit, but something like 9 out of 10 Kickstarter projects are 'labor of love, we want to make it accessible to you as cheaply as possible,' as opposed to 'we want to build up a lot of buzz and…

So why can't it be both? If you are against my product becoming a huge hit after getting off the ground first via kickstarter then moving on to bigger markets with a possible windfall for the creator, and a better product for everyone due to a large IPO, then it sounds more like jealousy than anything else.

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#93

Post by shittyanalogy » 

    1) Kickstarter is not an investment platform.
    2) Kickstarter is not a store.
Kickstarter is ONLY for giving your money away to ideas you want to see succeed. The perks are a gamble at best and misleading at worst.

If you give money to a kickstarter for any other reason, despite what the campaign or your friends or some blog tells you, you're quite unfortunately doing it wrong.

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#94

Post by pavlov »

modeless wrote: post #2

This is the real shame in the Oculus acquisition. If Oculus had been able to give away just 10% equity, every single Kickstarter backer would be $20,000 richer today. The sentiment would be completely different. The SEC needs to get in gear and start allowing equity crowdfunding pronto. The SEC's classification of millionaires as "accredited investors" who get first crack at all the best investment opportunities is e…

Here's an illustrative example of just how arbitrary these regulations are...

In USA, donation-based crowdfunding is legal but equity-based crowdfunding is not. In Finland, it's just the other way around: a company can sell equity to private individuals, but it can't take donations [0].

In both cases, the proponents of the laws claim that the average citizen is dumb and would be ripped off if these protective laws weren't in place. Yet somehow Finns are smart enough to invest into private companies whereas Americans aren't, and meanwhile Americans are smart enough to make their own decisions about donations whereas Finns aren't.

Both of these laws are just historical accidents at this point. They made sense in an era where information was hard to acquire, but today you can just google a person's name to find out whether you want to invest in her project. Arbitrary limitations around crowdfunding should go.

- -

[0] More precisely, one needs a "collection license" from the police to take donations in Finland. This is only available to registered charities, so doing a Kickstarter is effectively illegal for Finnish companies and individuals.

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#95

Post by makomk »

gojomo wrote: post #84
anigbrowl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been explained to you about 100 times already, why not start with your best argument instead of pretending the question has never been asked before? For the record I support raising equity through things like Kickstarter and lowering the accreditation threshold for small investments, but you're being extremely disingenuous here.

I don't recall any good explanations, maybe you could recount the best ones? It can't be because the rule provides strong protection of non-millionaire savings, because there are already endless ways for the gullible to lose all their money. It can't be millionaires are especially immune to common scams, because there's no evidence of that – and in fact quite a lot of evidence to the contrary. Why not make these gove…

The problem with small-scale investing is that the smaller your investment, the less you can afford to spend doing research and due diligence on what you're giving money to. Also, companies don't generally want to deal with a bunch of tiny investors if they don't have to, so even if it were legal most of the good investment opportunities still wouldn't be available to people who don't have enough money to count as qualified investors. This is apparently especially true of Silicon Valley VC, where everyone wants investors with good contacts.

Basically, it'd open up individuals to being scammed a lot more and the non-scams would still not be open to them.

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#96

Post by makomk »

shittyanalogy wrote: post #93

1) Kickstarter is not an investment platform. 2) Kickstarter is not a store. Kickstarter is ONLY for giving your money away to ideas you want to see succeed. The perks are a gamble at best and misleading at worst. If you give money to a kickstarter for any other reason, despite what the campaign or your friends or some blog tells you, you're quite unfortunately doing it wrong.

Yes, and from the point of view of backers this introduces a new risk of failure: the company doing so well that it's bought out by a company whose goals are at odds with the original purpose of the Kickstarter. They originally backed the Kickstarter as a way to create a platform for VR gaming and other applications that developers could use, but instead that was abandoned in favour of a good exit from a venture capital perspective.

They may have thought they were giving money to an idea to help it succeed, but in retrospect they were providing early-stage seed funding for 0% equity exactly as the article says.

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#97

Post by icelancer »

refurb wrote: post #31
shiftpgdn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's a bit of a libertarian viewpoint but it is not the government's job to be my nanny. If I wish to throw all of my money down the toilet on some hopeless start-up I should be allowed to do so.

In a perfect world, it would make sense to let people tell everyone "buyer beware". However in reality, some people do need protecting and the easiest way to do it is to "protect" everyone.

And Las Vegas exists for what reason, then?

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#98

Post by icelancer »

sc68cal wrote: post #81
modeless wrote: post #2

This is the real shame in the Oculus acquisition. If Oculus had been able to give away just 10% equity, every single Kickstarter backer would be $20,000 richer today. The sentiment would be completely different. The SEC needs to get in gear and start allowing equity crowdfunding pronto. The SEC's classification of millionaires as "accredited investors" who get first crack at all the best investment opportunities is e…

This reminds me of the same arguments that were made about Bitcoin and exchanges and how the mean old SEC wasn't letting the little guy get in on the action. The same thing would happen in the world of Kickstarter - big asset bubbles and rampant speculation, bogus funding campaigns, graft, and exploitation.

>The same thing would happen in the world of Kickstarter - big asset bubbles and rampant speculation, bogus funding campaigns, graft, and exploitation.

I see. So what do you call a roulette table with obviously addicted gamblers throwing their money away, then? Good old American fun?

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#99

Post by kaybe »

res0nat0r wrote: post #90
semiel wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are unreasonably conflating the legal situation and people's moral expectations. No one doubts that Oculus had every legal right to do what they did. People just feel it was unethical.

I'd replace unethical wth the word jealous. They see big money and want in on it. They fulfilled their kickstarter and they are not forever in debt to the whims of their backers.

Not really. The problem is not an aquisition per se, it's an aquisition by Facebook (one of my friends, a backer, put it as 'the only thing worse would have been Zynga').

Imagine there is a company who you don't trust at all and who, in your eyes, has a history of betraying their users (in this case, with the changes and defaults in privacy settings, and the web stalking... ).

Now imagine this company buying a company you care about, who had the air of being honest and open and which you trusted. Since you do not trust the first company, you can now effectively no longer use the product of the second.

(While this may look a bit like paranoia, I know people who think like this.)

Re: Aug. 1, 2012: When Oculus Asked for Donations

#100

Post by joesb »

hrjet wrote: post #83
dlp211 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? They knew the terms of the deal.

This is not a legal proceeding. It is more of an emotional outpouring of disappointment. The unwritten deal was that the funders were backing a low-overhead, indie organisation.

So they can never becomes big company?

It's like a pathetic jealousy of wanting to help a homeless as long as you know they are never going to be richer than you.

Post reply on HN