flaw in so many online business models
While kickstarter is not a bad idea, it is part of a genre of businesses on the web that succeed due to removing the need for regulation or legislation.
Uber dodge licensing of taxis (thus reducing costs and consumer protections), job sites like peopleperhour.com and guru.com dodge employment protections for what effectively becomes their workforce and airbnb.com dodge the regulations that Thomas Cook are currently having to deal with.
All these services can be good for the consumer, i am not against innovation and market disruption, but thinking that somehow all that red tape business had previously was just a problem and offered nothing in consumer protection at best naive and at worst eroding years of balance in industries.
I expect some down votes for this comment, but I am just pointing out the bad sides to such online services where a small company that does little more than build a website (albeit a clever one), rake in loads of cash when the people who actually put their work or money on the line get no protection anymore.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
