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To people who funded this, why ? There are some established products already on that market, why buy into a crowdfunding campaign when you can buy the same thin
by camus2 10y ago
To people who funded this, why ? There are some established products already on that market, why buy into a crowdfunding campaign when you can buy the same thing from established vendors ? why take the risk ? reminds me all these drone campaigns (like Zano and co), you can go on the internet, buy a drone, and even send it back if it doesn't work properly, if you buy it from Amazon or Ebay. With crowd funding you'll pay then wait years to get your products if it ever comes and by the time it is there you can get the exact same product, even cheaper from honest vendors. I don't understand why people choose to bear all the risk without some form of compensation. But I'd like to understand. I'm not talking about indie video games or an music album that needs funding, but crowd funding tech products in general.
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoThe best is when Chinese copies of your crowdfunded product are available for 1/5th the price before shipping date of crowdfunded product. It's happened numerous times, e.g. with http://get.pressybutton.com http://get.pressybutton.com IIRC.
- GavinMcG 10y agoSo if I want to have a device without doing all the work of getting it built, I can just put together a Kickstarter and then refund everyone once the knockoff is on the market?
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoOr buy the clones from the copier at the lower price, pass them on to your backers and profit! What could possibly go wrong!?! Or - product-ception - create a product, have it ready to sell, Kickstarter it at a higher price; be both sides of the market.
- ansgri 10y agocreate a product, have it ready to sell, Kickstarter it at a higher price; be both sides of the market. This is what successful research groups do: get an industrial customer, invent some tech in the process (but you won't have neither time nor desire to do the boring work of academic writing), and when the project is complete, get some funding for the results you already have. Everybody's happy, just don't forget to negotiate rights to retain the basic (not application-specific) technology.
- manarth 10y agoMany of those products - such as Zano - are too good to be true. People buy them because they promise features or a price-point that doesn't currently exist. Sometimes that works out, and the campaign delivers on its marketing promises. And sometimes, well, you get a Zano. If you're lucky.
- pfarnsworth 10y agoI find it amazingly ridiculous that people would pay for things based on basically an ad. That's what a Kickstarter is. How many things are available on Amazon that we wait to see reviews for from legitimate companies? And yet for Kickstarters, people are willing to believe that these ads are completely the truth and it will be exactly what you think it is? It's like we've gone backwards by 40 years in terms of trusting companies' ads.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoI think one of the cases is when there aren't any equivalent products available from "established vendors". It sometimes makes great sense (e.g. Pebble, their recent shutdown notwithstanding). But to be honest, when I browse tech section on Kickstarter, 90% of products there scream "pointless" or "bullshit".
- throwawaylalala 10y agoThere wasn't when it was funded.