...Also, when you look at the more imaginative/ingenious crowd funding campaigns of musicians, they are actually doing more than just begging people to give em money. They will frequently offer things like instrumental tuition, or a cooked meal, or a personalised song or something.

Granted, it's a little irksome if the person asking is that guy who always sings floorspots completely out of tune and can't really play guitar. But those people rarely get as far as crowd funding an album...

The only real problem I can see with crowd funding is the law of diminishing returns as more and more musicians - both amateur and professional - start doing it. Then again, I just have to remind myself how I would feel if Alasdair Roberts or Tom Paley or Mary Hampton or Martin Carthy asked me to pay in advance for an album. I know I would.