Hmm, once having worked on a USB device that had encryption on it, it required an ARM chip and a circuit board running a custom software stack. Even if the creator thought they were going to create one of these, for their original target of 12k I don't think they had a clue about what they were doing.
Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
31–40 of 120 posts
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#32There is a simple solution to this problem. Don't allow project creators to offer the project as a reward! It should be ok for people to try and fail with projects on Kickstarter. By preventing creators from offering the product as a reward backers will understand better that it isn't a pre-order system. It's an "I need money for this idea. It might work or it might fail but if you want to help me try, give me money"…
I don't see how this solves the problem of accountability at all. All it can do, maybe, is mitigate the backlash from the backers a little bit?
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#33The expectations some people have about crowdfunding are unrealistic. It has to be clear from the start that when you donate money to those projects the money will be spent and the project might fail anyway. People have been using Kickstarter as a pre-order site which I think is not ideal in many cases. The option to preorder should be different from supporting a project in general, but Kickstarter sadly doesn't offe…
A project failing and a project going completely silent are two different things.
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#34There is a simple solution to this problem. Don't allow project creators to offer the project as a reward! It should be ok for people to try and fail with projects on Kickstarter. By preventing creators from offering the product as a reward backers will understand better that it isn't a pre-order system. It's an "I need money for this idea. It might work or it might fail but if you want to help me try, give me money"…
I don't see how this solves the problem of accountability at all. All it can do, maybe, is mitigate the backlash from the backers a little bit?
By setting expectations that there is none.
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#35Notwithstanding all the hype and legitimate positives of crowd sourcing, this is the very real negative side. Kickstarter gives unfettered access to funds, which more often than not is required by a given project, and they indemnify themselves and further remove themselves from the funding transactions (a legal requisite for anyone not wanting to be tied up in litigation for the rest of their known life). Perhaps the…
Maybe even only release 50% of the funds initially and hold the rest in escrow until a given set of circumstances are met. That way the users are exposed to less risk knowing they could get half of their funding back. On the downside, if this keeps happening, users aren't going to back as many projects, and fewer projects will be successfully funded (which may or may not actually be a bad thing).
If you go down this road, just let project creators decide their milestones and timing, and then release the funds. Different projects have different cash flow problems, so each creator should be able to decide.
Want all money upfront? Fine, but people will know and decide accordingly whether to back your project.
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#36There is a simple solution to this problem. Don't allow project creators to offer the project as a reward! It should be ok for people to try and fail with projects on Kickstarter. By preventing creators from offering the product as a reward backers will understand better that it isn't a pre-order system. It's an "I need money for this idea. It might work or it might fail but if you want to help me try, give me money"…
Unfortunately, this project creator hasn't provided any proof that the money was spent working on the product. If there were photos and records of work and progress being attempted, and at least some communication with the backers along the way, I suspect the tone and deposition of the comments would be different.
It's a lot to read through, but there's pages of people just asking for transparency to see the status and to understand what challenges were coming up. There's just as many comments from the creator that things are going great and we should be ready to ship in no time at all.
Trying out a new project or product and failing is one thing, never attempting it and running off with the cash is a different matter entirely.
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#37The expectations some people have about crowdfunding are unrealistic. It has to be clear from the start that when you donate money to those projects the money will be spent and the project might fail anyway. People have been using Kickstarter as a pre-order site which I think is not ideal in many cases. The option to preorder should be different from supporting a project in general, but Kickstarter sadly doesn't offe…
How do you mean, they don't offer that kind of separation? It's very easy to back a project without ordering the product; simply don't select a backer reward level when confirming your pledge.
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#38I'm surprised this isn't a more-common outcome of things on Kickstarter. Seems like the perfect "market" to peddle vaporware without consequence.
This might be a serious problem already, but people are generally unaware of it. Kickstarter does not make it easy to find failed projects. And almost everyone who contributed to a project a year ago is likely enough to have forgotten about it by now. Even if they remember it, they have no way of rounding up all the other backers into an angry mob, except by posting on reddit or Hacker News.
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#39The expectations some people have about crowdfunding are unrealistic. It has to be clear from the start that when you donate money to those projects the money will be spent and the project might fail anyway. People have been using Kickstarter as a pre-order site which I think is not ideal in many cases. The option to preorder should be different from supporting a project in general, but Kickstarter sadly doesn't offe…
How do you mean, they don't offer that kind of separation? It's very easy to back a project without ordering the product; simply don't select a backer reward level when confirming your pledge.
I think those should probably be two separate steps for most projects. General funding to get the research going, making the prototype etc, then as a second step, allow the ordering of the actual product. There might be projects where this is unfeasible, but in general it would be good to separate the creation of the product and the manufacturing/distribution process. It would be safer for everyone involved, and for projects that fail during research - it would be clear that the money invested into this research is gone. At the same time, harsher measures should cover failure to follow through on actual orders.
Re: Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding
#40There is a simple solution to this problem. Don't allow project creators to offer the project as a reward! It should be ok for people to try and fail with projects on Kickstarter. By preventing creators from offering the product as a reward backers will understand better that it isn't a pre-order system. It's an "I need money for this idea. It might work or it might fail but if you want to help me try, give me money"…
Then what's the incentive to participate at all? Would backing a project be equivalent to a 12 month high interest loan? Or, equivalent to an IPO where "backers" get a certain percentage of the company (which I'm sure opens a massive legal mess).
I don't think most people have a problem with projects failing. It's when creators take the money and don't appear to even attempt to produce the product that something is wrong.