[Community] phones

[Zack]

Hi Nikolaus,

 > So we can't offer even dual-core or 8 MPx cameras... We can
 > just offer what we have designed so far (without giving up some
 > basic principles like 99% openness, most components available
 > at major chip distributors).

This lack of super-powerful features is what I was advocating for.
If you define the target audience as people who want freedom-rich
computing, with 99% FOSS, it may turn out that they don't even need a 
3MP camera.

If you further define the target audience as people who want
privacy rather than government snooping, you may find the
audience is larger than expected.

You don't know what they want or who they are until you get their attention
enough to be able to ask them.

Use the scientific method. Define your hypothesis, design an experiment
i.e. a phone feature set and a price, then run the experiment
in the form of a campaign. If funding is insufficient, the experiment
failed, so revise the hypothesis.

 > The other problem is that nowadays a successful campaign must
 > be run extremely professional
 > Samsung etc. Kickstarters are no longer a method to fund some
 > geek projects, but have become a standard sales channel like Amazon or
 > Best Buy. Just a different form of payment and delivery terms.

Crowd funding is a populist activity that threatens
big companies, so those companies will try to make competitors believe that
a relatively luxurious approach to the handling of campaigns
is required. This scares off some potential small competitors,
but it is smoke and mirrors, or Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt.

In the US, the mainstream media does something similar
when they regularly joke about bloggers and belittle people
who take blogs or the Internet seriously. This is just an anti-populist 
tactic.

Another anti-populist tactic is when the big companies
try to take over the populist activity itself, as when newspapers
start blog sites or when companies sell products through Kickstarter.

The tactics of big companies really don't matter.
It is the perspective of the person who pays into a crowd funding 
campaign that matters,
as follows:

1. Crowd funding is like a fundraiser for a community
organization (e.g. to raise money for a school to buy sports uniforms).
No one expects a communitarian enterprise to be run by
a slick marketing agency from Manhattan. In fact, some may find super-slick
marketing to be out of place or offensive.

2. Many of the projects on Kickstarter or Indiegogo are
esoteric, and/or they exist to satisfy desires that are unusual
or unanticipated. Consequently using these services is more like when
a person happens unexpected upon a specialist who has no marketing budget,
e.g. a craftsperson at a fair who sells Medieval sword replicas.
There is not a reasonable expectation of perfection in marketing,
but there is a hope for excellence in the product itself.

3. People go to crowd funding sites looking for products that are like 
exotic gems.
They know that most big companies do not produce a wide and deep
variety of products. It's not economical, and middle management
is too lazy or self-interested to bother. Customers go to crowd funding 
sites
with a focus on finding the interesting "gem" projects, not on
finding 24/7 support or glitzy marketing.

Cheers,
Zack