that's what I thought when I watched the video and looked at the prices they wanted and the expected ship date. I've already been burned by two kickstarters for $300+.
May I ask which projects those were? Do we have any idea of the proportion of projects that get funded without any kind of result?
I know that technically you make a donation, but some of those "projects" feel like borderline scam. Can't the donors or even kickstarter themselves turn back on the project owners if they receive a huge amount of money and fail to deliver anything? Especially when they say they have working prototypes in the introduction video.
I'm really convinced that the average kickstarter donor sees their donation as a pre-order more than an "investment". I'm sure many of those who donated to a project that failed to deliver felt like they've been scammed, and that may hurt kickstarter in the long run.
The 2nd one I'm still hoping the backers will come through or at least refund the backers. So I'll hold that one for now.
I have backed 16 projects and the first was TikTok Nano watch band which funded Dec 2010. Out of the 16 only 2 have me very concerned.
I just backed two more projects one for $1,299 which is a 3D Printer and the other $99 for 3D printer software. I will continue to back things but I look carefully at their estimated ship date. It must be within 60 days, and I will dispute any charge from a project that doesn't deliver within that window.
I remember there was a website that indexed the kickstarter projects that didn't get funded. Maybe there should be one for the projects that were funded but didn't deliver.
I absolutely agree that instead of investing, it's really a pre-order system with zero liability. If I pre-order a product from a vendor and it doesn't get delivered, I can get my money back or contest the charges but here, because you're donating to a project, it's not really on commercial terms so there's nothing you can do but give negative feedback on the project.
