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It is really hard to separate naivete from greed and from general cluelessness in situations like this and even with a little weirdness on the part of the guy w

It is really hard to separate naivete from greed and from general cluelessness in situations like this and even with a little weirdness on the part of the guy who started the Kickstarter project we're still talking about a situation where nobody actually lost any money. Maybe he sat down one day and thought: "Hey, I'd like to rip people off by making up a fraudulent wi-fi enabled power socket." but to me it seems more likely that he had an idea kicking around for a while and then found Kickstarter and thought "Hey, I bet I can make this for $20 a unit" only to find out that was unrealistic and he got freaked out by the situation. Maybe I'm the one that is naive but in a situation where nobody was actually harmed and there is at least some question of the culpability of the "suspect", maybe we shouldn't rush to judge them.

andrewljohnson 15y ago
I tend to favor the non-malice-based explanation too, but in this case it's looking bad. The article documents a couple of lies (patent pending, etc.), the person doesn't seem to exist at all, and he also magically transformed into some chick at the end. Looks like a scam got snuffed. If it weren't a scam, KickStarter would probably say so vociferously too.
- X-Istence 15y ago
  I don't think that is necessarily true ... Kickstart themselves have said that they don't closely follow each project and it is up to the backers to decide whether they feel it is worth their money or not. The whole idea of Kickstarter is to allow family and friends to help you with your idea and to spread that idea by word of mouth, but it provides a great incentive to make sure that you do complete the project and make good on your promises, because your friends and family are going to be there asking about it in real life. That is a little bit more difficult to do online, when it is so easy to fake who you are.

andrewljohnson 15y ago

I tend to favor the non-malice-based explanation too, but in this case it's looking bad. The article documents a couple of lies (patent pending, etc.), the person doesn't seem to exist at all, and he also magically transformed into some chick at the end. Looks like a scam got snuffed. If it weren't a scam, KickStarter would probably say so vociferously too.

X-Istence 15y ago
I don't think that is necessarily true ... Kickstart themselves have said that they don't closely follow each project and it is up to the backers to decide whether they feel it is worth their money or not. The whole idea of Kickstarter is to allow family and friends to help you with your idea and to spread that idea by word of mouth, but it provides a great incentive to make sure that you do complete the project and make good on your promises, because your friends and family are going to be there asking about it in real life. That is a little bit more difficult to do online, when it is so easy to fake who you are.