Kickstarter and the rest of the crowd source services mix customers and investors into a mishmash that effectively strips you from the rights and privileges of either. You do not receive the rights and benefits of being an investor nor do you enjoy the guaranteed buyer protection as you would as a consumer buying a product.

And while you can try and hide behind the "it's a choice" argument this doesn't pass the simple smell test. Launching a product via crowdfunding is now cheaper and less risky than launching a product through normal means, like some one else have mentioned in this thread, there are too many companies that use it as a marketing and pre-order platform instead of what it originally was meant to be - a place to get funding for projects that would not be able to be funded through normal means. If this trend continues and everything moves to kickstarter like platforms you as a consumer suffer, you lose the rights and benefits that consumer protection laws provide, while still paying the same price and sometimes even a premium.

I don't care what people do with their money, I care about trends that could have a negative impact on myself or society now or in the future. For me this is no different than the twitter, google, or facebook "censorship" debate, you can claim these are private services and they can do what they want. I see it from a different perspective, in my eyes when you reach a certain market position you no longer can hide behind "I'm just a company I can do what I want" and you must respect the neutrality of information and the freedom of speech for everyone.

Yes you are.

> nor do you enjoy the guaranteed buyer protection as you would as a consumer buying a product.

Is this actually true? I mean when you order a product you pay for a contract, it's possible the company will not deliver and go bankrupt - isn't that exactly the same situation as when you order via Kickstarter?

> there are too many companies that use it as a marketing and pre-order platform instead of what it originally was meant to be - a place to get funding for projects that would not be able to be funded through normal means.

A lot of websites end up being used for something different from what they were originally intended for. Heck, the Internet itself was intended for quite different purposes than those it serves today. Who cares?

> If this trend continues and everything moves to kickstarter like platforms you as a consumer suffer, you lose the rights and benefits that consumer protection laws provide, while still paying the same price and sometimes even a premium.

In a competitive marketplace there is no anti-free-lunch. No-one is getting rich off board gaming. Rather, more and better board games are being created. Customers aren't being stupid, they're accepting the risks because they're worth it.

I agree with most of your points but this one I have a bit of an issue with.

I get that this may not have been the original vision of Kickstarter and similar platforms. But, in terms of consumer risk, this actually seems to be pretty far down the scale. Say I'm using Kickstarter to gauge interest in something I basically know how to do and have the capital to create. Is that really a problem compared to doing a Kickstarter for something that's a germ of an idea with many unknown development and production issues to come?

I do get that pre-orders are riskier than pre-orders on Amazon. But it still seems as if market validation of a concept/product is still useful for everyone concerned.