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Comment by sniperkic | Hacker News Reader

Indiegogo has surmounted those obstacles and charges a pledge when it is made then refund slater if the campaign doesn't succeed. That might be a competitive advantage going forward.

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I reckon you could charge a certain % of the pledge to prevent this kind of trolling. You'd still be allowed to back out, but the money would stay on Kickstarter and cannot be withdrawn, but instead just put towards another campaign (but that money no longer counts towards the reserve of future campaigns). This makes sure that the troller gets their money locked up in Kickstarter. Few if any legitimate Kickstarter funders would be bothered by this and if they really were bothered by it, Kickstarter staff could evaluate those few incidents on a case by case basis.

> Few if any legitimate Kickstarter funders would be bothered by this

Except those that only come to Kickstarter to back a specific campaign, instead of backing lots.

Then these people should better not back out.

so sort of like store credits, where you return a good you purchased, but can only use the credit to buy something else from the store.

I don't know if "surmounted" is the right word. Kickstarter has made deliberate choices to operate this way. Kickstarter favors the backers, not the campaign. They surely know well how the system operates, and it's not an obstacle per se, but a rule of their game.

That is an option that can be changed, there have been indiegogo projects such as the ubuntu phone, that would only have charged if funding had been successful.

Not true. I was frustrated when indiegogo deducted money from my bank account instantly when I pledged for the Ubuntu phone. It was surprising because I had only pledged significant amounts on kickstarter previously. Honestly, for someone without much in the way of liquid assets it was frustrating to have so much money frozen for over 30 days.

And you highlight probably the biggest issue with indiegogo's approach. Keeping money tied up while waiting for the project is pretty bad.

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