[interesthrow2]

Well, what do you expect? the more money you raise, the more money they earn. Kickstarter isn't better, they allow campaigns to put a staffpick logo in their description even though there was no staffer picking that campaign. They are both as scummy IMHO.

https://petapixel.com/2018/10/17/if-you-backed-a-meyer-optik...

They allowed the same business to run multiple campaigns concurrently, opening new ones when the old ones were not even fulfilled. Turns out these scammers were using new funds to fulfill old campaigns and since a ponzi scheme always collapses...

I could go on and on like this with Kickstarter.

I studied their business model a bit, and came to the conclusion that these businesses are actually B2B with the appearance of B2C. These are marketing platforms,selling marketing services to you, paid by fees and the client is you, the project creator, not the backer since they successfully claimed they have zero contractual obligations toward backers. But backers are still billed by Kickstarter, at no point the project creator issues a bill or is forced to issue one. This is extremely clever from a legal perspective and it is what sets them apart from ebay and likes. But what are backers billed for then? that's the most interesting question, they they are not billed for the good they "backed"...