I'm concerned about the risk there as well, but I feel like you can spin that both ways. There's a weird intersection with opening investment to anyone and concerns about folks making ill informed choices.
I think there's a difference between "open investing for equity", and "open investing for a thing that one day may turn in to equity given a certain set of events".
The majority of people will assume that "start up investing" or "equity crowdfunding" (or whatever you want to call it) is like the stock market, but on a smaller scale. You invest money, and you get shares in the company.
I don't think the concern is around folks making ill informed choices (Robinhood has shown us that that can happen in the public markets as well), but more around start-up companies taking advantage of the lack of sophistication by the every-day investor in order to push horrendous terms.
Probably by keeping the crowdfunding part, but with reglation around the terms that have to be offered, and actions you're allowed to take after equity crowdfunding. But it's a pretty complex problem.
That's true, but I think something like SAFE is very different from crowdfunding for equity (and much more risky and misnamed, it can be neither simple nor safe).
That intersection you mention will be an interesting place in the time to come. I don't think we've found the sweet spot between "only professionals can invest", "the retail investors take on huge risks and aren't aware because of wild models with strange names" and "the company can't raise medium amounts because the regulation surrounding the process would cost much more than they would get", but I'm sure somebody is working on it.
