The DRM that apparently blew up the project wasn't in scope when I backed it. This was supposed to be an open source, No-DRM stick. After they had everyone's money, they decided to build a Chromecast clone instead. Classic bait-n-switch.
If so, I agree with that---hence my point that it would be easier to work.
1) get a refund, lose the ticket you'd been lucky to get at face value back into the pool, probably never to be seen again for the same price. 2) hold onto your ticket, wait a year, go see the gig
It therefore resulted in $millions being held by the organisers for over a year - there are extremely low risk ways to gain a meaningful profit from a large amount of capital. Intentionally or not, and whether or not it was invested by them during that year, this situation turned out to be a great way to get a huge, zero-interest loan of said capital.
I'm not sure if there are laws that prevent this kind of thing from happening, but it's certainly easy money in theory.
Obviously if the starting capital is less, you could potentially notch up the risk of the investment etc, but that's a very meaningful profit for most companies I should think. At the least it's a very valuable individual's salary for a year.
So what could be happening here is that a big company was the target audience all along. Raise a bunch of money with a "disruptive" piece of hardware, garner hype, get some venture money, return the Kickstarter cash.
That seems totally plausible to me. To the VCs these guys look like semi-sure bets to get gobbled by MS or Sony or Netflix or, hell, anyone looking to enter this space.
I was baited with this: "The product is fully functional today, with the hardware design final, tooling complete, and manufacturing ready to ramp up in the next 30-60 days. We also have fully functional sender apps for Firefox, Chrome, iOS, and Android - you can Fling from any of these platforms on almost any laptop or mobile device." [1] And this: "Hardware is done! It was actually previewed in June-" [1]
That expectation was switched for this: "After struggling with the DRM development based on Firefox OS for most of this year, we realize continued development of DRM, though showing early signs of promise, will be a long and difficult road. We have come to the conclusion that we will not be able to reliably predict the completion date of the DRM development without significantly more research, development and integration." [2]
So I donated to a project that was 30-60 days away from start of manufacturing and instead found my donation being used to fund development of something else. Why is this not a bait-n-switch? If I'd known what they were going to build, I would have just bought a Chromecast back in October of 2014.
[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-t...
[2] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/matchstick/matchstick-t...
Like Sanddancer says, it's just feature-creep that scuttled the project, not a malicious misrepresentation of the product.
It's more like you pre-order a pocketless shirt, I'm not able to retrofit a pocket onto it and so I refund your money.
In that reply I explain what I felt I was baited with and what it was switched for. Maybe you could explain how you feel the term should be used, since you feel my usage was incorrect?
And I am sooo deceived now: they can't handle DRM? NO PROBLEM! They are running late? NO PROBLEM! Just get me what you promised me whenever you get there! I wish I was offered a choice, here, instead of being forced to take my money back.