I believe the same tree was used for manufacturing golf balls for a time. Before that golf balls were originally made with leather stuffed with feathers but transitioned to be the "gutty ball" for 50 years or so until they transitioned to rubber and more modern materials.
I think if you are including coffee shops, dry cleaners, and the rest of small businesses that are self-funded, I agree. If you look at VC backed high tech startups, I don't think that is the norm:
Coffee Meets Bagel is a dating app to help people make meaningful connections that inspire growth. We're looking for sr android and backend python engineers that have built things at scale to help us with our growth towards profitability.
We offer competitive salary, benefits, and perks. If you are looking for a company where you can make an impact, that has diverse collaborative culture that is female founded and female led, and where you can help us disrupt the dating industry through innovation, you should check us out.
Having worked for a competitor that was later acquired by GoFundMe, the reality we faced was that we could determine pretty quickly whether a fundraiser was going to be successful within 48hrs or so. While we spent a lot of time developing tools to help people setup a good fundraiser which would increase their chances, for the most part, it just came down to their extended social network.
Most people came to our service directly to give to a specific fundraiser (as opposed to coming to our site to find a fundraiser to give) and while we did things like "now that you gave here, check out this" type features, the results were somewhat lackluster. If I were to start a compassionate crowdfunding site today, I'd try to build it in such a way that it could be embedded into niche communities that are both to gather content, support, and fundraising.
The whole experience is that it was fantastic to work with people really dedicated to the mission and feeling like you are making a difference. On the other hand, it's hard also not to change your mind on how healthcare is viewed in the US, that the majority of Americans are one car transmission away from a downward spiral into poverty, and while I appreciate GoFundMe and other compassionate crowdfunding sites, a high tech only, private enterprise solution is not always the best way to solve humanities problems. Coming from a die hard capitalist, that's saying something.
I've heard this many times before and don't doubt thats the way doctors feel but it's a little like not monitoring production because you don't want developers chasing down minor production issues.