Beyond fundraising statistics, Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Strickler is gratified to see creative projects—from a new indie album to a documentary about chess champs growing up in poverty—expand from just a good idea to fully realized. “These things exist in the world just as creative projects alongside all others,” he says. “There’s no core difference, like it’s just some weird Internet thing.”

The public version of Art.sy—a Pandora-like “free repository of fine-art images”—went live this week. But, despite a great deal of support from members of the art and tech communities, critics are questioning the site’s curatorial thrust.

“Never before has an entire nation’s oil paintings been made available online.” Britain’s Public Catalogue recently completed a decade-long project doing just that, and the collection features everyone from Leonardo Da Vinci to Tracey Emin. Next up: sculpture!