from the gamble-with-someone-else's-money dept.
Sony used the Japanese crowd-funding site Makuake as a test balloon for its new e-paper based watch. Both Forbes and Mashable have stories on this, though neither touches on my first reaction: why is a enormous multi-national corporation worth tens of billions of dollars using a crowd-funding site to fund new products?
One of Sony's statements claims "We hid Sony’s name because we wanted to test the real value of the product, whether there will be demand for our concept", which may be true but doesn't justify taking consumer's money up front for a product that it may never even deliver.
How many "customers" who placed pre-orders would have thought differently if they knew it was Sony who was the actual source of this yet-to-be-made product? How many would be weary of providing their personal information to a company like Sony?
Is this what we're to expect in the future from large, established, wealthy corporations? Having crowd-funders finance the development of future products, with no legal obligation of ever delivering the product? This all seems so wrong to me on so many levels. It does not surprise me that Sony would be at the forefront of this type of manoeuvre. Should crowd-funding sites do a better job of identifying the actual company or individuals behind projects posted on their sites?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday November 30 2014, @08:06PM
You have to be very keen on a product to provide money through crowdfunding, with no assurance of receiving the product.
The whole system exists because of laws that limit investments in risky prospects to the wealthy. Otherwise instead of pre-ordering products through crowdfunding, lots of people could become shareholders in the development of the product. Consider the example of the Oculus Rift. One can make the case that these laws protect people from bad investments, or that they exist to keep wealth amongst the wealthy. Look at Venice's "La Serrata" or "closure" for historical examples of the same.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:00PM
Well, other than pointing out the counter examples, you haven't addressed the main issue in TFS, namely, why would SONY, with more money than God hide behind a crowd funding campaign, especially knowing that they could never walk away from it and stiff the crowd if it didn't pan out. It would soon be found out who was behind the crowd funding effort and regulators would howl.
Its not likely this crowd funding would fail. All Sony would have to do is steal the technology of the Pebble [wikipedia.org], and they could get something out the door, even if nobody wanted it, it would satisfy the model of the crowd funding model, and they could walk away from it with essentially zero development cost.
I can see both sides of it. Sony is the company we like to hate. Would we feel the same if it were a different company funding new products this way?
But what if this model was chosen by a different company, which was already reasonably successful in the the market place and had a reasonably good reputation? Say Casio or Timex (just to stick with the wrist device market)? Would the suspicion and outrage still attach?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by edIII on Monday December 01 2014, @01:35AM
The gist of your argument is correct.
I'll boil it down in plain English:
[Granny]: Why yes! I'd just love to make you children a lovely little new pie. New fruit from the forest. So sweet.
[Little Red Riding Hood]: Gee that sounds nice, I just happen to gots some of the fruit right here! You can make the pies with it!
[Granny]: So you would like the pies? The new pies?
[Little Red Riding Hood]: Oh, golly gee, yes!!! My friends will too!!
[Grannn-BigBadSony]: WeLLLLL!! I'm gonna make those pies! I'm also gonna bend you over and fuck you too! You and your friends too! BWAHAHAHAAAHAHAHA If you try to get away or hide I'll kill you....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday December 01 2014, @02:02AM
Yes, because it's not about "funding new products" but:
That's not the development of a new product one is funding, it is marketing.
If you don't hate marketing that much, let me rephrase it: it is marketing on the expense of consumer, without any deliverable yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday December 01 2014, @04:13AM
But now that they ADMIT they are behind it you can rest assured there will be a product produced and delivered or money will be refunded.
so if there was a point, I'm not sure what it was.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday December 01 2014, @08:31AM
It's also worth noting that they only raised about £25,000, so far below what the watch would actually cost to develop. They are asking for about £110 for a watch.
Personally I can't see anything wrong if they deliver. All crowd funding is a kind of market research to see if people are willing to buy a product. At least they have what appears to be a working prototype and a good chance of delivering.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 1) by monster on Monday December 01 2014, @05:54PM
Not really marketing, IMHO, but market research. And market research is hard. If you just ask, a lot of people is going to say "sure, I would buy one for $XX!", but it's also known than many of those "sales" don't happen when you finally bring to market, you need to get a product and get real sales to get hard numbers. Crowdfunding allows them to do that.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday December 01 2014, @02:23PM
Yes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @08:12PM
I recall Slashdotters refusing to buy Sony products after the rootkit scandal. I assume that extends here.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @08:19PM
Every global corporation involved with hardware, software, services, infrastructure, or retail is being boycotted by some separate group of /.ers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday November 30 2014, @08:49PM
Arguably yes, but I think Sony has a fairly special place very high up that list for good reasons. For me, that whole rootkit fiasco, as bad as it was, isn't the worst of it, but rather the way they personify just how much the consumer suffers from the conflicts of interest when a technology company gets deep into the entertainment business...like the horror show that is Blu-ray, which has yet to, and will never darken this doorstep.
I'd argue that Comcast is gaining on them pretty quickly for a lot of the same reasons.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by digitalaudiorock on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:38PM
Just to add to my own post...I think one of the things that makes all the anti-consumer stuff with Sony so glaring is that...for those if us that can remember...they actually were a rather cool company. Ironically, they were the ones making DAT recorders, while the record companies of the day were the ones killing it because of copy paranoia. Since then they've become the poster child of anti-consumer DRM etc.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:03PM
boycotted by some separate group of /.ers.
Yes, but, this isn't /.
oh wait..... I see what you did there.
Well played AC, well played.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:21PM
I hadn't thought about it in a while but Sony has been on my shitlist for a long time for all their stupid antics (substantiation: Betamax vs Sony [yes really], decss, rootkit, general anti-consumer activities like the DAV-S300 / HCD-S300 receiver I have has NEVER played a single burned audio CD or DVD despite numerous media manufacturers and everything else plays them just fine!). I haven't directly* purchased any Sony/Aiwa products in... 12, 13 years? I don't have any reason to change that now, haven't missed them!
* because they produce OEM LCD panels, batteries, component parts etc that work their way into consumer products and you'd never know about unless you tear it down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @08:40PM
Yes it does. Sony sucks and not just the rootkit.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday November 30 2014, @08:41PM
It does for me, although they have been getting a bit better in that last couple of years. I almost considered *looking* at their TVs when I bought a new one, but didn't. They still have an exceptionally poor security record these days, so handing over personal information is a bad idea.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:14PM
I almost considered *looking* at their TVs when I bought a new one, but didn't.
The only Sony products I have are ones I received as gifts, a reasonably decent pocket camera, and an ancient CD players. I avoid shopping Sony automatically after doing so for years, and always finding their products over priced and under specked.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday November 30 2014, @10:03PM
Why would you hand over personal data when buying a TV to the manufacturer?
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday November 30 2014, @10:39PM
The second part of my comment was not really related to the first, other than it involved Sony.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 30 2014, @11:54PM
Haven't bought a TV in a while?
A lot if them have wifi and cat5 built in, some have camera's built in, all strictly for your convenience of course. *cough*
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday December 01 2014, @03:59AM
Open up and drill into the WiFi chip? The camera can watch the back of a tape. And the Ethernet can be limited to a local LAN without an internet connection. Besides it usually doesn't benefit from any connection anyway.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by computersareevil on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:14PM
My boycott of anything Sony extends back well beyond that. Sony has always tried to lock customers into their products with proprietary bullshit. Batteries, "Memory Stick", MiniDisc, Blu-Ray, etc. The rootkit scandal and their repeated security failures have only solidified my commitment to never, ever buy a Sony product.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Sunday November 30 2014, @10:37PM
Sounds a lot like Apple.
(Score: 2) by computersareevil on Tuesday December 02 2014, @12:44AM
I never have and will never own an Apple product either. I could see the cult forming around the Apple fashion the first Mac came out in 1984.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:34PM
They lost me as a customer for three reasons. First was the Sony PS2 demo disc that wiped out memory cards, got a free game out of it. Then the playstation network hacking where everyone was supposed to change their passwords, my account was lost and they said I had to start over. Then the PS2's which barely last a year, got 6 of them in the garage. No way I'm going to buy more consoles, if it isn't a PC game, I don't buy it. One good thing came out of it, PCSX and PCSX2, playing my old PS games on the Linux or Winblows PC.
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Monday December 01 2014, @12:33AM
It does for me (and, by extension, all the individuals who I influence).
Can't think of a single company who I blacklist like Sony. It's as if they're dead to me. It is fortunate that there's no area where they are dominant enough that I have to consider their products.
It was kinda close with video game systems, but my kids have a wii and are interested in something more powerful now. They're quite happy to look at an XBox 360. (Yes, I like buying the previous generation video game systems.)
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:39PM
...which may be true but doesn't justify taking consumer's money up front for a product that it may never even deliver.
That seems to be the case for pretty much every crowd funded product. Instead of complaining that Sony is using this as some kind of back door, low-cost market research tool, you would do better to ask how in the hell it became accepted practice to ask for money up front with no guarantee of anything.
If you donate to a crowd funded product for a warm, happy feeling, good for you.
But if your "investment" disappears in a puff of smoke don't complain.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @10:24PM
They never sell parts or manuals for things they sell. You must be a certified Sony repair shop to get any parts. Many parts in there older stuff had chips and transistors with no part numbers on them or Sony only part numbers.
I gave up on Sony crap many years age. I don't even buy old Sony crap from resale shops. Not much to see at shops anyway because most of it has been trashed because of the high cost of repairs and they break all the time.
Fuck Sony, Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Wendys, Elevation Burger, and others I haven’t patronized in so long that I forgot them already.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 30 2014, @11:04PM
Try calibrating the optical drive on a playstation, what a pos.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @12:24AM
Sony and Red Hat both hate their customers.
System D? Rootkit?
I can't keep all these thugs straight anymore. Their psychopathic ways and methods are all the same.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nyder on Monday December 01 2014, @12:42AM
You want to make new products? 1st rule, don't use your own money. Get investors so you have less to no risk. Corporations are about making profit, nothing more. If lying to the public by setting up a sockpuppet company to use crowd funding to raise the capital so Sony does NOT have to spend any money is the biggest fucking win they or any corporations can probably get at this point in their life.
In other words, I am not surprised and this will be abused in many forms by corporations from here on out.
(Score: 2) by TK on Monday December 01 2014, @06:55PM
>Be Facebook, MS, Sony, etc.
>Start small shell corporation operating out of some employee's garage
>Have shell corporation advertise idea on crowd-funding website.
>Raise capital
>Use capital raised on advertising campaign with lots of shiny renderings of "finished product"
>Raise more capital
>Receive/accept offer to be bought out by parent corporation from step 1
>?????
>Free R&D
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @02:38AM
Absolutely. You should feel much more comfortable providing your personal information to two guys who have never run a business but are now promising you the Moon for a piece of vaporware that they swear they'll put together in their garage if you give them enough money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @05:22AM
I know every Kickstarter professional I invest with personally and I only invest in free range electronics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01 2014, @04:08PM
At least they're not known criminals unlike Sony.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday December 01 2014, @11:22PM
So what you're saying is that the choice is between probable incompetence, fraud and, and overblown expectations, or two guys working out of their garage?
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by SuperCharlie on Monday December 01 2014, @03:59PM
Maybe not technically, but this smells a lot like fraud. Advertising you are not who you are and taking people's money surely has some legal repercussions when eventually you find out you are supporting someone you loath.