[Gta04-owner] Invitation to indicate interest in next batch ofGTA04A5 boards

[Xavi Drudis Ferran]

> > OK, so there is less of a barrier for producing new A4 boards, which is
> at least good if the A5 is never produced.
> 
> I would say the barriers are the same - only slightly different.
>

But can the GTA04A4 be manufactured at all ? I thought there are
components that can't be sourced or replaced by pin compatible
alternatives, so you either manufacture boards without populating
components, or manufacture a different desing (no matter how similar). 

I thought the GTA04A5 could be manufactured (if someone comes 
with a truckload of money). 

So the barrier for A4 is infinite and the other is lots of money ? 

Or what am I misunderstanding ? 
 
> > In total then, there are about €4000 in one-off costs for a
> production run of a new design. I think it's eminently possible to raise
> that through crowdfunding. Moreover, I don't think we're going to
> determine, a priori, whether such a crowdfunding effort will be successful.
> I think the only way to determine whether it will be successful is to do
> it.

Wait, why ? 

I don't get crowdfunding much, but AFAIK it's not magic ant not charity 
donations either. People who put there money get something for it. 
So what will they get ? A phone ? or a motherboard for a phone ?
Whatever it is it's going to cost a lot to manufacture, so it is going to
be more or less equally difficult to get a expensive open phone sold
than to get someone to participate in corwdfunding to get an open phone
for a lot of money, no ? 

Unless you what to crowdsource 4000 EUR in exchange of say, a photo
of a phone, or your name in the manual, or some such. Which I suspect
may be even harder, but if that's the idea I'd just ask for donations (already done).

There's some assumption that people will put money in a project if it's
crowdfunding that they don't put in if it is not ? 
I've never visited a crowdfunding site searching for projects to put my money 
in. If I've gone there it was following a link from some project I found somewhere,
and once informed of the crowdfounding options I didn't go looking for other 
projects there. 

If it's a matter of confidence I still don't get it. Are people supposed to trust more
a GD project on (say) kickstarter than a direct offer from GD ? If they don't trust
GD they shouldn't thrust their project on kickstarter either. If they trust GD , then they
still need to trust kickstarter. Even assuming that people know and trust more 
kickstarter than GD, it does not help because to crowdfund they have to trust both Kickstarter
and GD. 

GTA04A4 was already done crowdfunding style. People paid, if there was enough 
money they got their product, otherwise they got their money back. It wasn't done 
by a capitalist puting down big funding, then designing, producing, stocking products
ready for sale and then selling them in detail and earning more than the intial capital
if all were sold or losing it all if none was sold. This sort of (loaned, reinvested, publically
raised, it doesn't matter) venture capital is not the idea people have in a crowdfunding. 
The idea in a crowdfunding is either some tangible return for some money or the 
money back, never the possibility of losing the money.

The only difference is the crowdfunding platform (GD themselves, kickstarter, verkami, whatever), 
not the economics.  But the crowdfunding mechanics have already been tried, 
and have produced a few hundred units, not any more. Even options to delay 
payment were tried. 

Or maybe I got crowdfunding all wrong ?