I was thinking about this the other day, and since this thread got bumped... here goes:
Inefficiency vs No Efficiency
A lot of things are inefficient: internal combustion engines, your digestive tract, political campaigns, plenty out there.
Most good-cause ventures are really inefficient because of the overhead involved in getting people interested.
IF and ONLY IF people unilaterally donated a lot of money without thought of reward, things wouldn't be this way. If you don't like it, the thing you can do is donate to some cause, and ask to be taken off their mailing list. When I donate to IMBA, I don't want socks!! I want trails!
But that's just me. It would seem, for the majority, you can't generate ANY donate-able amount without an appealing concept / modern marketing.
My point is if you don't like Advocate Cycles' business model, compare it to the raw numbers of other "cause" type businesses and you will find many with yields that are similarly a small slice of the overall pie. Further, if you really need to donate to a cause and want all funds allocated to just the cause and not the overhead, by all means do that.
I tend to donate to wildlife conservation projects. Bought me up a small portion of city marsh land that, thanks to some other concerned neighbors, will remain marsh land.
If you look at Advocate from the perspective of "I could use a new bike anyway, and let's chip in some trail bucks while I'm at it" - that's going to resonate with some people.
Seriously though, entropy is a _____.
