[ChuckMcM]

Loved that article, it is an excellently crafted critique of Kickstarter (general interest) which is melded to a call to action for their rejected Kickstarter (Bytelight). So at one level it reads "Kickstarter rejected us, we're bummed we don't have all their eyeballs, we used the Lockitron example to try to fund our product design."

When I saw Kickstarter I had the same feeling I had about Ebay (although initially Ebay weathered its risk storm) which was given the larger audience for the product (Ebay occasional sales, Kickstarter small investment) you could get better results than the customer could on their own. And people abused EBay too (selling stolen or counterfeit goods, ripping off buyers when nothing was shipped).

Perhaps there is a 'Craigslist' model of funding referral service to achieve the wide reach but stay hands off enough to keep out of the lawsuits. Ebay's solution to monetizing that was both a listing fee and a selling fee, something Kickstarter could also do (assuming it isn't patented).