Kickstarter shouldn't be considered anything more than a donation, with the possibility of getting something at the end. The model has flourished because of the simplicity of it, and involving contractual agreements in the sponsoring process would simply complicate it and scare away potential donors. One should support Kickstarter projects because they want to see a project flourish, and the rewards should be an afterthought.
while I agree with that, I can't help but feel if you're getting public money, your product should be public, and oh so many of them are not. Sometimes the upshot of donating to a kicstarter project, is that the public can later buy it. yay?
I understand why they are banned -- a lot of their stories are sourced from hear say and aren't written with professional courtesy -- that being said, they actually do publish a lot of interesting articles that others just aren't willing publish because of their ties to the valley and partner relationships. That guy Sam Biddle digs really hard (sometimes into the dirt) and sources a lot of stuff others don't.
When you drill down to it, the fact that PandoDaily's investors are also investors in a lot of the companies they report is a pretty big issue -- perhaps one that makes them disreputable? What about the fact that sometimes articles on TechCrunch are essentially large snippets of what a founder has just wrote to the writer in an email? There's a lot of bias in tech news, it just depends who's side you're looking at it from.
I understand what you're saying, but I respectfully disagree. I can't really speak to PandoDaily's ethics specifically, but between the dozens of media outlets who cover the sector who are brutally duking it out for pageviews, the idea that they are all pulling punches that would earn them hundreds of thousands of readers smacks of a conspiracy theory.
The "Truth to Power" argument I'm sure they would make really looks like the refuge of a scoundrel when you look at the majority of their output - it's selling sex, sleaze, snark, and cynicism. All of these are just from the last week or so, and I think it would be tough to defend most of them:
I wasn't disagreeing with you, they do try to sell sex and publish silly articles often, but I do think some of those are interesting and telling of an industry that no one else really hits on.
The article about Prim for example I think makes a good point. Also note that TechCrunch gave them a 1000 word review -- that's quite telling to me as it sounds as though YC might have an arrangement with TechCrunch.
The personal profiles, while tacky as hell, do also show you that folks who are all for disruption and who some look up to, are also just regular people. I also noticed this on the Path article -- http://bioischanged.com/user/davemorin which is actually quite interesting to me.
Again, I totally get the ban, and I agree they publish filth, but I have to say, they do cut through a lot of other valley red tape that others don't.
I see your point, and I don't mean to beat you up about it. I guess my only other question is how can you trust a word they print? With the legal standard of libel so high for public figures, and their tendency (in my opinion) to willfully misrepresent, it just seems like a waste of time - like reading the National Enquirer at the checkout line for updates on the whereabouts of Bigfoot. I'd rather read a novel or catch up on Breaking Bad.
I also don't think Valleywag has a monopoly on looking critically at Silicon Valley and startups like Prim. I've seen plenty of critical items on startups of that nature in both blogs and mainstream tech reporting, many of them featured prominently here on Hacker News.
The reason Valleywag has this rep as a critical eye on S.V. is because it is uniformly, hyperbolically negative. Check out some of their now embarrassing past coverage on SpaceX and Tesla. I'm guessing they don't cover them much anymore.
Valleywag is the web-embodiment of a bitter, know-it-all drunk heckling CNN at the bar all day.
It's true...but in this case it seems the story indeed originated there and appears to have some credibility. I figured people might at least want to know what project it referenced and a minimum of a backstory.
Just curious, how was that revealed? Kickstarter recipients aren't required to reveal the accounting of how they spend the proceeds, are they? Did she voluntarily disclose to her backers that she was paying off personal debts?
You have to admire that he plans to pay refunds over time by "getting a job". I hope he sticks to that plan and I can guarantee that people will admire his character when they find out what he's doing.
