That's a serious problem with Kickstarter - they allow groups to offer tiers that appear to be pre-orders and do nothing when those pre-orders are not delivered.
Kickstarter isn't going to stop doing this despite all the criticism. So people need to keep reminding everyone that tier rewards are menaingless. Maybe you'll get the reward, maybe you won't, but you don't back a project for the reward but because you want to see the project succeed.
Repeating this message may make kickstarter stop projects being dishonest with reward tiers.
It will also cause a significantly lower amount of investment into the site, projects, and overall would decrease the number of fees collected. So it ain't happening.
That's right! I mean there are a lot of people who are considering Kickstarter as a charity. It's not a charity!
It's a funding platform and of course funding does come with the risks of projects failing, founders running away with the money. But, it certainly doesn't have to be a free lunch giveaway as in, "Hey, you wanna start a product/company and be a millionaire? Great! Take my $100 and make merry! No no, I don't want anything in return, I am just doing charity". No thank you sir! If I have to do charity, I know where the drop boxes are.
It's not quite a pre-order. You explicitly bear part of the risk, so you're an investor. But you invest in exchange for the end-product, rather than equity.
