Is Kickstarter a Bad Idea?
On the plus side – you get to order in advance, get stuff cheaper and quicker, and feel cool about it
On the negative side – people can literally take your money and run, claiming ineptitude. See The Coolest Cooler.
Has there been a study done on this? Good results versus bad? I sense it is, on aggregate, quite a bad deal.
There has been a study, by Kickstarter. It says that 9% of the time you won’t get what you paid for.
Sounds about right.
And I’m guessing the average supposed advantage you get from being a backer is 10-50%
And I’m guessing that many projects, when they sell to the public, end up selling it cheaper than they expected.
Conclusion: for entertainment value only. You might get lucky, but on average your risk equals your reward.