Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kennywinker | Hacker News Reader

Don't like how Kickstarter basically lies:

> So I call Kickstarter founder Yancey Strickler, and ask: What if Uhrman isn't able to deliver the consoles? Would Kickstarter get involved?

> "You know, that would be new ground," he says. "I don't know. I mean, no, I don't think that we would. But certainly, the kind of thing you're talking about is not a bridge that has been crossed yet. Someday it will. And you know, I think if something did go awry, it would be — it wouldn't be my favorite day."

And yet as far as I know there are a number of projects that have failed. Can't find any names via casual googling, but I remember last time Kickstarter came up on HN a few people were citing projects they had backed that had given up. I'm a PopSockets backer, and even though he still says he'll deliver, I have some serious doubts.

Coupled with this: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/16/allegation-kickstarter-is-s... I'm really starting to think Kickstarter, the company, is acting shady. Still believe in the idea of crowdfunding, but my trust in Kickstarter is waining hard.

edit: here is the thread I was thinking of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3473360

That was definitely the shocking part of the story. Kickstarter seriously has no idea what it would do in the case of a project failing..? Even if it hasn't happened yet (and I don't believe that), they didn't think a little ahead?

I feel like they are counting on projects to fail in protracted collapses, rather than a shocking sudden failure.

I would rather they get much much more proactive about explaining to people what they are signing up for.

"Don't like how Kickstarter basically lies"

I'm happy to give Kickstarter the benefit of the doubt here, and assume these are the growing pains of a not-yet-fully-explored business/funding model.

I'm sure that over the next few years (and quite possibly in progress right now) we'll see some spectacular failures or unexpected outcomes from Kickstarter/Indigogo/Pozible - and those failures will guide the future of the crowdfunding space.

For now, I'd be surprised (probably to the point of suspiciousness) if Kickstarter had all the answers fully thought out to all the possible failure modes of crowdfunding.

From the linked article:

They scraped about 99% of the successfully funded but were only able to scrape 82% of the unsuccessfully funded projects.

If they could find info on >80% of unfunded projects, that is either some really incompetent cover up work or there isn't a cover up.

Though I have to agree something is off if they believe 100% of the projects that have funded have gone off successfully, and that they have no contingency plan for their largest source of liability. Even if it is just PR liability, a few high profile cases of fraud could ruin them.

Yeah, that's more than a little disturbing that either the founder is not above making an outright lie to national media or that he is completely out of the loop. If he had told the truth of Kickstarters terms, did he think that that would somehow hurt the comapny's fortunes?

Perhaps the question was phrased in a more specific context? That is, the reporter actually asked something like: "What happens when a multi million dollar project fails and so many individuals are out hundreds of dollars?" it may be the case that no failure of that size has happened yet.

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