Because it gives good people a false sense of “taking part”, of “helping”, of being socially useful. I mean, the social benefit of helping specific kids, Masha and, say, Liza, is beyond dispute, of course. But it’s not a solution to the problem!
Problems like helping the poor, protecting nature and so on should be solved at the institutional (systemic) level.
That is, not only will these problems always be with us in the end, but local solutions are like bringing down a fever instead of treating the illness. And the ways of bringing it down often create more negative consequences than the problem itself. Read up on unintended consequences.
Local charity fights the symptoms of a problem, and it pulls talented, active people away. It lets them relax: I help as much as I can, I gave UAH 2 to a beggar on the street, or even helped sick kids.
Behavior like this does nothing to solve the problem, that’s one. It encourages charlatanism and begging, on the streets and on the air, that’s two. It gives, I repeat, a false sense of taking part, that’s three.
Even worse: you join a group called “Fighting together against ___” on VKontakte, the Russian-language social network, and/or Facebook. Phew! It’s hard being a philanthropist!
Another option is to sign a petition that will just stay hanging on one of the online petition services. Welcome to the age of online indulgences!
Political activity online will never replace political action. Read Evgeny Morozov.
So what should we do? Organize. Get together and think together about the causes. Create associations. Find commercial (read: non-state) forms of management and aid, and attract attention (in a civilized way!). Weed out the dishonest. Create independent centers of expertise that are transparent, public and therefore accountable. Fight charlatans and the sawing up of budgets, as embezzlement is called here.
The technologies we have (especially for communication) make all of this possible, convenient and cheap.