On the Difficulty of Running Mutual Aid, from the Rule Changes at Zhongtuobang and Qingsongchou That Effectively Cut Benefits

Yesterday someone on my WeChat moments complained to me that Qingsong Mutual Aid had changed its rules, effectively reducing the amount of aid, and asked what I thought. It left me quite reflective.

Mutual aid looks wonderful at first glance: everyone pays very little, and if you fall ill you receive a great deal. In the beginning this is indeed true. So the model is somewhat beguiling at the start. If a mutual aid platform exploits the fact that people cannot yet see clearly, it can grow fast and win a lot of resources—but this is unsustainable.

Because the amount of aid it must fund and the incidence of illness in society are fixed—is it really so cheap?

If a mutual aid platform offers a 300,000-yuan cancer aid entitlement, then each person must spend several hundred yuan a year. This can be calculated mathematically. When contributions reach the level they should reach, how many of those bargain-hunting people who don't want to spend money will be willing to stay on the platform? Based on KangAi Commune's experience, many users actually understood nothing at all, which is why so many later called the Commune a scam—and explaining was exhausting. (To be clear: in absolute terms some people find the contributions high and unacceptable, but in relative terms I still hold that this is the lowest-cost form of protection—at least KangAi Commune is.)

So a mutual aid platform either feigns ignorance from the start to grow users first, or fails to think it through at the start and only later comes to its senses. Under those circumstances, changing the rules becomes an inevitable choice.

So I predict that more mutual aid platforms that make user count their first priority will join the ranks of rule-changers (user count determines the scale of financing). Zhongtuobang and Qingsong Mutual Aid have merely made a start. Mutual aid is not easy. Some platforms claim fifty or seventy million users; I am deeply skeptical. My judgment is that not many people truly understand mutual aid today.

Recently P2P has seen another wave of collapses, and many seemingly unshakeable heavyweights have gone under. We in mutual aid should also be on our guard, and must never let a passing moment of competitive speed harm the healthy development of the industry (the current industry environment was hard-won, and there are plenty who would like to see this industry killed off). For a mutual aid platform, stability and sustainability override everything.

P.S.

The 300,000 figure, which seems to have become an industry standard, was first proposed by Anti-Cancer Commune, but on reflection we later decided the number was set too high. The corresponding contributions exceed what the people we want to help can afford, and people's willingness to contribute is not strong.