I am fascinated by the ways in which crowdfunding is reshaping how we organize our societies, in participatory ways, by giving so many more of us a chance to invest our money in activities we support. Like the restaurants we like. And it does seem to me that this kind of participatory financing being available to ordinary people makes quite a change from a very small number of people controlling most investment – it helps us rebuild our communities from the bottom up.

The Counter had a fascinating article recently about how restaurants are turning to crowdfunding. It started the article with the story of Neil Blazin, who runs a pizzeria called Driftwood Oven in Pittsburgh, and who decided late in 2020 to turn to his neighbourhood customers for financing. He had run a Kickstarter campaign before, in 2017, when he was opening the business. This time he turned to Honeycomb Credit, which he called a ‘grown-up’ version of crowdfunding, the story said.