Lewis Winter, a designer in Melbourne, Australia, has given financial support to 373 projects (including three portrait commissions, an interest of his). “My motivations probably aren’t that different to the Medicis’ … just my budget,” Winter told me via e-mail. His average pledge is about $15, and his most generous was $140. “I think Kickstarter helps people do something a lot of us have forgotten how to do — ask our neighbors for help,” he continued. That said, he also had some caveats about the crowd as patron in the digital age, noting that projects typically get many more Facebook “likes” than actual backers: “Apparently a whole lot of people like something so much they’re not even willing to give it a dollar.
— The Trivialities and Transcendence of Kickstarter by Rob Walker
