I've got no beef against the people using Kickstarter as a store to handle their initial production sizing. I think the branding and curation are valuable to me for locating these sorts of projects.
There is always a risk of unforeseen delays or even failure of the project, but that isn't unique to Kickstarter. Any tiny company that funds purchasing with pre-orders is offering the same dynamic, except they will go bankrupt instead of just sort of dissolve.
Eventually someone may have a large fraudulent project and flee with the money, but again, that isn't special. It happens in traditional companies too.
Perhaps eventually Kickstarter will need to have graduated oversight. If your project goes over six figures you must convince someone at Kickstarter that you aren't blowing smoke. If it goes over seven figures you have to pay for a Kickstarter supplied auditor to whom you must show progress for incremental payment releases.
There is always a risk of unforeseen delays or even failure of the project, but that isn't unique to Kickstarter. Any tiny company that funds purchasing with pre-orders is offering the same dynamic, except they will go bankrupt instead of just sort of dissolve.
Eventually someone may have a large fraudulent project and flee with the money, but again, that isn't special. It happens in traditional companies too.
Perhaps eventually Kickstarter will need to have graduated oversight. If your project goes over six figures you must convince someone at Kickstarter that you aren't blowing smoke. If it goes over seven figures you have to pay for a Kickstarter supplied auditor to whom you must show progress for incremental payment releases.