The Basis for Mutual Aid's Long-Term Existence: A Different Kind of Experience

In Professor Hu's article he emphasized the advantages of mutual aid in terms of cost and efficiency. Beyond that, is there any other reason for mutual aid to exist?

I think there is: it offers users a completely different kind of experience — one form of the "experience economy." The price in the experience economy is not necessarily the best, yet it still draws many participants. Airbnb is an example: people can stay in someone else's home and experience the local customs and life instead of going to a hotel. It is not a hotel, it is inferior to hotels in many respects and cannot replace them, yet it still has countless enthusiastic participants all over the world.

The mutual aid experience is similar, and it differs from insurance in many ways. Once you buy insurance, it is basically a relationship between the policyholder and the insurance company; people do not know, and do not need to, communicate with others who bought the same insurance. Mutual aid, by contrast, makes participants feel a connection to one another. Mutual aid is transparent: people can know clearly who the aid money went to. KangAi Commune's visiting teams, the spontaneous activities of members in different regions and so on all create connections between people, which the former lacks. In the process, it lets people directly feel giving and care, lets them feel and think about what "all for one and one for all" means, and has a positive significance for a social climate of helping one another.

What is more, the process of making and adjusting mutual aid rules also gives people the opportunity to take part in depth.

In short, mutual aid makes protection no longer a cold commodity but a "community."

So even if KangAi Commune had no advantage in efficiency or cost, I believe it would still have value in existing, and would still have enough members.