It makes so much sense for the crowd to fund the creator, rather than a publisher who takes on the risk and exerts creative control over your product. Using the right online platform, you can turn your entire consumer base into a focus group that tells you exactly what they want, and even pays for it in advance.

We're returning to a model of creative production based on Renaissance "patronage," but with that patronage distributed throughout the population of individuals who will actually be using the product you produce. There is huge potential here if we can find the right kind of online platform (I do think we need to go beyond Kickstarter's model in the long term).

You gotta include the footnote to that last one. It is golden:

"(7) One study, for example, found that children who had just finishedplaying violent video games were more likely to fill in the blank letter in “explo_e” with a “d” (so that it reads “explode”) than with an “r” (“explore”). App. 496, 506 (internal quotation marks omitted). The prevention of this phenomenon, which might have been anticipated with common sense, is not a compelling state interest."

Old Man Murray will be returned to "notability" and reinstated, aided by a coincidental influx of reference articles referring to Old Man Murray being deleted. See, the system works!