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Comment by yummies | Hacker News Reader

Wanting to prevent campaigns that will end in failure due to "stupidity", or even people who "got in over their heads" is just as valid as wanting to prevent fraud. Kickstarter's image/brand will be hurt by poorly executed campaigns that fail for whatever reason, so it's in their best interest to keep those to a minimum.

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I don't disagree, but the cause of an unshipped product matters. If people believe Kickstarter campaigners are naive, that's one thing; they'll proceed with a bit more caution. If people believe that Kickstarter campaigners are intentionally trying to screw them over and run off with their money, that's another thing entirely. The former erodes trust in individual Kickstarter camaigners; the latter erodes fundamental trust in the site itself.

True, Kickstarter should be trying to address the issue, regardless of its cause. But let's be careful before leaping to the conclusion that people have been acting in bad faith.

I've thought for a while now that Kickstarter should have upper bounds for funding to prevent people from unwittingly accepting too much money and forcing the scale and scope of their project to change. Once a project is 200% funded, stop allowing more backers.

I had a similar thought, that rewards should only be granted while you're under the funding target. If you want to pile on later to make sure the project has the best chance it can? Fine, but no reward - that goes to the people who actually made it possible at all.

You can limit the number of slots per reward, which is essentially the same.

Yes, but that doesn't stop people from adding more slots than they can realistically handle.

The skills, knowledge, and resources to produce 1k widgets is totally different than producing 1MM widgets. I might be able to brute-force manufacture 1k widgets from my garage and that would kickstart the business if that's my skill and scale estimate. I need staff, facilities and a different type of supplier if I need to make millions, and I may not have what it takes to deliver on that.

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