If you look at the portfolio of 25+ companies currently fundraising on Wefunder, I think the results speak for themselves. All except one went to an incubator AND used us.
Most of the YC companies do not need capital. Most have raised significant amounts from very well-known investors.
We don't replace the current system of fundraising. We're just another tool founders can use.
We solve the quality problem by making it a no brainer for the startup - quick and fast money from a crowd of passionate users and customers of your product. But only having one shareholder on your cap table.
So it seems that the modus operandi for an early stage startup would be
* join a well-known incubator, get investments attached to that program, if that fails
* reach out to well-known angels and super-angels, rely on them to syndicate, if that fails
* reach out to not-so-well-known angels and superangels, if that fails
* crowdfunding
It seems that the startups that are attracted to crowdfunding are either those that only need capital and not connections (a rare thing), those that have been spurned by incubators and angels, and those that need more capital than incubators or angels could provide but had been spurned by VCs.