The Online Mutual Aid Model Has an Inherent Flaw

Today's online mutual aid model basically follows KangAi Commune's earliest institutional design: near-zero prepayment to join, an extremely low barrier to membership, and post-event cost-sharing. The original intention was to design protection with the lowest possible barrier, but it also brought a serious problem—speculation.

Many people who do not meet the requirements for joining mutual aid will join first and see: when they need it, they apply for mutual aid, and if it passes, it is a large sum of money, while if it fails there is little loss.

Moreover, if large numbers of people do this, then surely some will pass the review and receive mutual aid funds they should not have received.

Some members say: for those who don't get mutual aid, all past contributions should be refunded. From the perspective above, that is completely wrong—it would make mutual aid a truly zero-cost speculative activity.

So we must comprehensively overcome this inherent flaw through strict systems and by raising costs. Sometimes members criticize us for being unsympathetic and forgetting our original purpose, but in fact they have not yet realized that over the long term this flaw will deal a fatal blow to mutual aid platforms, and will also raise cost-sharing for everyone participating in mutual aid, making it unsustainable.

KangAi Commune has designed a series of strict systems—for example, why a review fee must be charged, why review must be strict, why funds cannot be returned even when aid is refused, and so on. These may not be well understood. Under members' criticism, the Commune has made some concessions over the years, such as not refusing aid outright to long-standing members, and designing refundable situations for those who do not meet the mutual aid rules. This is in fact a balance between overcoming the flaw and winning acceptance. But our basic position is unchanged: certain principled measures must be upheld—they are the foundation of a Century Commune.

Some people also say that when someone is ill, it is understandable to speculate a little—aren't you building a platform to help people? I believe that the precondition for helping more people is having a sustainable mechanism; a mechanism that runs stably is the precondition. When mutual aid becomes something unorganized and undisciplined, it becomes unsustainable. So when designing the mechanism, it is better to assume the worst of people in order to protect the good.