> A person who pre-orders something isn't investing in the company, they are buying a product being promised. I agree with this. I always saw pre-orders as a w

> A person who pre-orders something isn't investing in the company, they are buying a product being promised. I agree with this. I always saw pre-orders as a way to reserve your "spot" for a physical object. My first encounter with pre-orders was video games, before platforms like Steam where physical copies of a game aren't limited. The problem with pre-ordering now is that it's becoming a method of funding incomplete products, with the promise of a finished product. It involves the consumer in the production phase of a project, shifting the risk of "it didn't work out" from the investors to the consumers. And like you mentioned, > An investor gets a stake of the company. An investor (of certain worth) has a say in what is going on. ... A customer doesn't, they speak only with their desire to buy whatever product is being pitching. But, at the same time, it looks like they acquired a nice chunk of money ($14m in capital) only after they released their video. Would it have been possible to finish their product, advertise, and start shipping without that $14m, and however much they received from pre-orders? I can't say. To me, it seems like they started advertising to the public and accepting pre-orders before an actual product was ready for the mass market; but if they were running low on funding at the time, it may have been their only option to secure funds. (Take that with a grain of salt; I know next to nothing about business + entrepreneurship)