Why Does Crowdfunding Work Sometimes and Not Others?

This is a question examined by John Terauds in a recent post in Musical Toronto titled “Crowdfunding music: Everything old is new again as artists scramble for your contributions.”  In the post, Terauds paints a picture of the enterprising and entrepreneurial young composer W.A. Mozart, who utilized different, though similar methods of “crowdfunding” his work.  There are certainly numerous examples of crowdfunding projects that have met their goal and then some, but Terauds points to one recent project that didn’t even come close to its goal.   Was this due to lack of marketing and promotion?  A project that just wasn’t interesting enough for people to support?  Why did it fall so short? Terauds admits that he doesn’t have the answer.  But at the end of his post he poses the question – is the growth of crowdfunding good or bad?  What do you think?  Read his post here.