Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not wrong, you're an idealist, which typically are very closely intertwined when it comes to reality. If you gave $700 to a company who promised to deliver you a scooter a few years down the line if all of the dominoes fell exactly as planned... I would argue that you got what you paid for even if it amounts to nothing tangible in the long run. Which is to say, you paid for a pricey digital lottery ticket with…
Indeed, how many Kickstarter projects will it take to convince people preordering on an unsure thing is a gamble and basically an investment in an idea that interests you. Tons of billion dollar projects, let alone those with only a few million, have been delayed for years, changed half way through, or have died before finishing. The failure rates for new businesses is pretty high, 50% in the first year. One could qu…
Even though you are trying to warn people, you've accidentally fallen into Kickstarter's "dark pattern in broad daylight" by using the word "preordering."
Kickstarter donations (I consider it a charity) are not pre-orders. If I preorder a book on Amazon and it is late, tough for me. If the publisher closes down, Amazon gives me my money back.
Kickstarter donations, on the other hand, don't even have that recourse. We're giving them money out of the goodness of our hearts, and if everything works out for them and they feel like giving us our reward, we receive a nice "thank you gift."
Kickstarter transactions are charitable donations. We don't get a tax receipt, but if things line up, we do get a reward. If we think of it as charity without the tax benefits, we won't go wrong.
But the moment words like "preorder" or "purchase" enter into the conversation, we've fallen into the trap of thinking that we're consumers purchasing a good or service.