Kickstarter project raised $196K and stopped responding

I'm surprised this isn't a more-common outcome of things on Kickstarter. Seems like the perfect "market" to peddle vaporware without consequence.

Notwithstanding 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 there is some room to hold funds in escrow and release them after projects hit certain mile stones, but I think that would stifle projects more than ensure successful use of funds. This is a real problem facing an emerging industry that if someone figures out they could propel themselves to the forefront of this space.

It's unfortunate that all the updates are Backer-Only, including a recent one titled "Refund Reminder".

Could someone on HN who backed this project summarize what the company has said in its Backer-Only communication?

All the projects resources went into the pitch video...not a cent went to R&D. Even though crowd sourcing is awesome in my opinion, just like any investment, it comes with a risk.

Every purchase we make in life is an investment of some degree, in regards to kickstarter or indiegogo, a backer/customer/investor (whatever you'd like to call them), needs to weigh out risk/reward ratio, but also factor in the site's history of people delivering on their product.