Review my new e-commerce model: self-serve group discounts
fnid2: I've seen this trend popping up a lot lately.  Pooling buying power among individuals to get discounts up the supply chain.  It makes great sense.I think there is a lot of potential here because it is only at a certain scale that some ideas become profitable or even implementable.  In the old days, some investors got together and created companies at great risk in order to see if there is a market for a product.Taking these group buying systems to one more level, people who want a particular product can pool their resources in order to get the product developed.  I don't think Venture Capital sees the threat from models like this.Imagine the CNC market that is getting a lot of buzz for enabling them to be built at home.  If you create a company where when 100 CNC products are ordered, then everyone is charged, ALL the parts are ordered and constructed, perhaps in part by one such already existing CNC -- created just this way.This model enables the consumer of the product to be the investor in the product.  Models like this eliminate the need for venture capital in a lot of spaces with currently large barriers to entry.EDIT: Yep, here's another example, right on the front page of HN.  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1149207