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by enemtin 4784 days ago
This seems insane that Kickstarter doesn't have a policy on this. Guess all investments have some level of 'risk' to them.
4 comments

As far as I can tell, they basically want backers to be comfortable with 100% risk. I think this is a reasonable position.
If it's unreasonable people shouldn't back projects. The creator is also taking risk investing time and usually their own money into the project. If it fails they lose that investment and the backers lose their investment. Kickstarter needs to make it more clear to backers the risk involved and that they aren't pre-ordering anything. They are giving someone money and hoping they can successfully create something with it.
I think it's reasonable too, but something will inevitably change about this. Government always steps in to protect fools.

Best case, I think, is we'll have some federal law requiring obvious and visible disclaimers on these sites that you might lose your money.

Worst case, they impose some kind of transparency restrictions and rules on the developers.

They do have a policy; a policy that keeps them away from legal trouble, a policy of non-involvement. What you are seeing is that policy at work.
True.

And what if instead of disappearing, the company had simply tried (in good faith) and failed to deliver. The users would still be pissed off because they felt like they paid for something and the company didn't deliver.

The big problem I see with Kickstarter is that both users & companies see it like a pre-order service. Too often it's used this way and people end up pissed. In the eyes of the backers, they aren't paying to see something new created. They're pre-ordering a product they think would be cool.

If anything, kickstarter should enforce some sort of limits for perks to curb this sort of abuse.

Kickstarter is not an investment, you get no equity.

An investment is risk, you are risking losing your money, but at the chance of making lots of money. That's what an investment is, in theory anyway, right?

Kickstarter tech projects, you are risking losing your money... for the chance to get a product that's worth about what you paid for it anyway? Where's the possible reward that's worth the risk?