Crowd funding seems to have a serious downside that is not readily apparent. For example, a four year old went for a walk in sub-zero F temps in the wee hours here in Ontario a couple weeks ago and froze to death. A helpful guy set up a crowd funding fund raiser to raise the $17,000 for the funeral. It raised $170,000, which all went to the parents. Now the parents are in therapy trying to deal with having made $170,000 out of their son's death.
Apparently something similar for the guy up in Detroit? that was walking 21 miles to work and back. Crowd funding was started to buy him a car. He got not only a car but a sizable chunk of cash. A grand total of $350,000. Now, it seems, he has way more problems than the 21 mile walk ever was.
While I still think that the Flow Hive roll out has been terribly poorly planned and executed, especially in terms of market analysis and presentation of technical information, the fact remains that people have willing overfunded the project by 7100%. If someone comes along and offers you something silly like, say, $1500 per double deep hive to set them up with an apiary, what would your response be?