Recently i’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund my Rasky project. Rasky is an Open Source and DIY friendly KVM over IP built on top of the Raspberry PI model 2 board.

Of course, if you like the project and you choose to contribute to it or even just share it, you are welcome!.

That said, this post isn’t about Rasky, in this post i wish to give an answer to the many are asking why i choose to host the crowdfunding campaign on my own web site instead of using, like most of people do, a third party web site like kickstarter, indiegogo or one of the many other alternatives to them.

The reasons are many, but more than anything else 4 reasons are the most important to me, not in specific order or priority:

• costs
• personal attitude
• bitcoin
• i don’t see any real advantage on using a third party solution

costs

This is probably the easiest reason to understand.

If you use a third party solution, it charge a percentage on what you rise with your campaign, and usually it isn’t exactly a cheap charge. I like to avoid that.

personal attitude

I’m used to be root on my machines. I like to be in control of what happen, on the data i collect, and i’m a little bit paranoid on security, privacy and so on.

I don’t like to depend on a third party that can potentially takeover all things, when i have choice, i prefer to host anything i do on my own servers. I host my own web sites, my mail server, my nameservers, anything. A crowdfunding campaign make no exceptions.

This way it’s easy to have total control on how the campaign is configured, on the graphic layout, on statistics about visits on the project page  and so on.

bitcoin

I like bitcoin, i use it, i trust it as the best currency ever. I like to permit to contribute in btc. 

Bitcoin are decentralized and without intermediaries, kickstarter and similar services doesn’t accept them ( yet?), but anyway, even if they were accepted, it make no sense to me to accept them using an intermediaries like them.

Anyway, having the campaign on my own web site, i’m free to accept any payment channel i like, bitcoin or any other.

There’s no real advantage to use a third party service

Assuming you already have your own web site and the skills needed to setup a simple plugin and/or manage to write your own code to build a crowdfunding campaign, i don’t really see any advantage to use a third party service.

Some people argue that there are a lot of people that just search for projects on kickstarter and then fund it. In my opinion those people are a very little minorance, statistically insignificant, but even if they were a more solid statistical presence, to hope they will find your project is like to hope you will find a little spoon inside a giant metallic waste mountain.

Other argues that kickstarter will give you boost by promoting your project. Except in the rare case you will get in homepage with your project, kickstarter isn’t promoting anything about you. You will have to think about your project promotion at 100%. No way to escape from it. Exactly like i have to do with my own web site.

More, many argue that using kickstarter and similar services augment trust from guests willing to donate to your project. This can be partially true for all-or-nothing projects, but there is no point in that in a keep-what-you-rise model crowdfunding campaign.

So, if i don’t have any advantage by using a third party service, why i should use it, pay for it, and to be limited in many areas when i can do with less expense and more freedom on my own server?