[thanatropism]

Point here is -- if you want a stake, buy a stake. If you want a steak, you get to sigh if the restaurant gets turned into a Hooters.

Me, I think Kickstarter is to fault for being sold as a tool for contributors. You go to kickstarter.com, it's like a shopping mall of the future. For what Kickstarter say they are, they should be a plugin that companies get to put on their website or something, not something that gets marketed to consumers.

[onetwofiveten]

No, that's not the point. The point is, when a company gets funding from Kickstarter, they are selling something more than just the Kickstarter rewards. They are selling an intangible good - a vision of the future. If that company fails to try to deliver that future, then it's a rip-off. Your attitude is like I tell you "hey I bought these trainers that were advertised as hard wearing but they fell apart after a week" and you reply "well you didn't buy a stake in the trainer company, so you've got no right to complain".

[thanatropism]

Kickstarter is not a store. Kickstarter is very weird, actually.

Kickstarter is not investment. I've never invested money in a company, but I've invested labor in exchange for shares; I was, thus, a stakeholder, and had a say in a number of decisions the company made.

If I buy a product off a store, a pair of sneakers, and they turn out to be shitty and fall to pieces in a week, I'm entitled to my money back or a working pair of sneakers. However, when you fund through Kickstarter something that says "Oh Hai Future Shoes", you're not buying sneakers.

If I invest in a company and they turn out to be using child labor, I can try and wield whatever powers I have in my shares to stop that practice. I can also divest and shame. However, when you fund "Oh Hai Future Shoes" through Kickstarter, you're not investing. You're not buying a vision of the future of shoes. At best, you can expect your rewards (usually a prototype of said sneakers) to be delivered.

But if they sell out to Nike shortly thereafter? And you thought you had an emotional connection?

This is why I kind of fault Kickstarter. It's just too weird a model; it allows fine, smart people like yourself to make unwarranted leaps of logic so that money flows that otherwise might not happen are made common and large.

At its core, understood as FAQs explain -- but not as the website in general is structured -- Kickstarter is a tool for business. Why does it have a shopping mall-like website? Why isn't it just an extension of tip jar tools for webmasters?

(I'm reminded of the Alec Baldwin movie with Jack Lemmon where he's screaming through a pep talk -- "TO GET THEM TO SIGN ON THE LINE WHICH IS DOTTED!!". This is what Kickstarter does.)

[kelnos]

Bad analogy. You're describing a case of false advertising (or at best a product defect), which should be remedied by either a product replacement or refund, or at worst a trip to small-claims court.

[onetwofiveten]

You haven't really given me a reason as to why false advertising is a bad analogy. I think this is quite similar to a case of false advertising or a product defect. Here the product is the service of Oculus developing VR technology for gaming applications. Contributors feel they were mislead and I am sure many of them would want a refund if it was offered.