I’m well aware of the merits of such prizes. My question was why they are “less scammy”. The prize association is still soliciting $X of research expenditure at a cost of $<<X, and the difference is borne over the participants. It’s not obvious or necessary that those participants are going to come out ahead. Without second-guessing the participants’ non-pecuniary motives, it’s structurally identical to Swoopo, which is why they both feature as examples in the original post.
As mentioned in my original response, this may very well be tangential to anything the OP (or anyone other than me) thinks is relevant. The value judgement of “scammy” vs. “less scammy” just stood out, and I wanted to query where it came from.
The ones I know about are the X-Prize and the NASA Lunar Lander Challenge. In both cases, the prize helped motivate and secure funding for something that the competitors wanted to do anyway, for their own tech-development purposes. While the amount spent exceeded the prize, the cost to meet the prize goals rather than simply do what they wanted to do anyway was much less (I have no good estimate for how much less).
The prize also helps the companies get investment, since now you have a source of revenue that only has the risk of “a competitor will do it better”, and doesn’t have the additional risk of “we’ll be the best, but no customers will show up”.
I’m not opposing anything. I’m asking why one thing is seen as “less scammy” compared to another. Chances are it was merely a throwaway comment by the OP and has no bearing on anything.
I’m well aware of the merits of such prizes. My question was why they are “less scammy”. The prize association is still soliciting $X of research expenditure at a cost of $<<X, and the difference is borne over the participants. It’s not obvious or necessary that those participants are going to come out ahead. Without second-guessing the participants’ non-pecuniary motives, it’s structurally identical to Swoopo, which is why they both feature as examples in the original post.
As mentioned in my original response, this may very well be tangential to anything the OP (or anyone other than me) thinks is relevant. The value judgement of “scammy” vs. “less scammy” just stood out, and I wanted to query where it came from.
The ones I know about are the X-Prize and the NASA Lunar Lander Challenge. In both cases, the prize helped motivate and secure funding for something that the competitors wanted to do anyway, for their own tech-development purposes. While the amount spent exceeded the prize, the cost to meet the prize goals rather than simply do what they wanted to do anyway was much less (I have no good estimate for how much less).
The prize also helps the companies get investment, since now you have a source of revenue that only has the risk of “a competitor will do it better”, and doesn’t have the additional risk of “we’ll be the best, but no customers will show up”.
The second, third and fourth paragraphs each list a substantial structural difference from Swoopo. That they share one feature isn’t as big.
Do you also oppose matching grants, where the recipient also needs to put in $X to get the money?
I’m not opposing anything. I’m asking why one thing is seen as “less scammy” compared to another. Chances are it was merely a throwaway comment by the OP and has no bearing on anything.