The Slow Growth of KangAi Commune's Membership Is Deliberate

Some members criticize the Commune for growing slowly, which pushes up cost-sharing.

First, it should be pointed out that in the mutual-aid model, more members does not mean lower cost-sharing. More members means more people sharing, but also a correspondingly higher number of people falling ill. So beyond a certain level, members' contributions are determined by the assistance amount (the right) and the incidence rate.

Second, it should be pointed out that the Commune has always been vigilant about, and appropriately controls, its pace of growth. There are four main reasons:

1. Our thinking about the business. In the mutual-aid platform model, there is a fairly long cycle before members' illness risks erupt, and a platform's own risks likewise take a long time to surface. So we need to grow cautiously, letting risks surface gradually and steadily rather than all at once, because the latter would collapse the platform.

2. Concerns about anti-fraud, vetting and other supporting issues in the industry. Even at a serious-illness incidence rate of one in a thousand, assuming one million people have all passed the waiting period, there would be at least 1,000 cases a year, and investigating and vetting those cases is a thorny problem. At present the supporting links for mutual aid in China are not mature, and in these circumstances a concentration of assistance events would leave many cases unable to withstand scrutiny.

3. Holding to our original purpose in founding the business. Whether an entrepreneur pursues this work for short-term growth, rapid financing and quick wealth, or hopes to make it a Century Commune that truly helps society durably, determines the thinking of us operators. We want to be the latter, and so along the way we have actively turned down venture capital and growth models that look fast but carry unforeseeable future risks.

4. Our understanding of how the public understands mutual aid. I believe there are not as many genuine mutual-aid users in China as people imagine: many join to take advantage of the low early contributions, and when contributions rise there will be an avalanche of exits, which is unbearable for a platform and would trigger collapse. So the quality of members matters more than their number.

In the past two years we have twice closed public registration, hoping that all members and we ourselves would calm down and think about the Commune's path to sustainability. Only sustainability is the responsible path toward our members and toward society. KangAi Commune will inevitably enter a period of rapid growth in the future — but only after a series of problems have been solved.