Yeah, I agree that the tone of my comment was difficult to understand. Mostly, this is due to the fact that what I described in my post, that people think they're buying a product, also occurs in my own mind every time I think about contributing to a Kickstarter campaign.
However, if I sit and think about it, I realize that what I'm doing is funding an idea. Kind of like donating to a political campaign. There's no promise that my chosen candidate will win, and if they don't I wouldn't expect my money back. Obviously, this analogy breaks down somewhat because whether a candidate wins an election is ultimately outside of their control. Whereas for a Kickstarter project, presumably the vast majority are possible to achieve 100% of the time as long as they don't screw up somehow. And that's not even considering the quality of the final product- that the game is fun, the fancy electronic gizmo isn't a cheap POS, etc. (This is obviously buyer's remorse, although one could also argue these are fraudulent too if they promise a "fun" game, or a gizmo that's not a POS.)
Either way, if you read the TOS for Kickstarter, they actually only require that projects do their best. If they fail, they have various outs to continue compliance with Kickstarter. One of those outs is explaining where everyone's money went, and why they aren't able to issue refunds. Of course, they also go on to say that backers may still seek legal action against them for a failed project, but in most cases these LLCs are probably out of business anyway at this point. Regardless, they're in the clear from Kickstarter's point of view.
However, if I sit and think about it, I realize that what I'm doing is funding an idea. Kind of like donating to a political campaign. There's no promise that my chosen candidate will win, and if they don't I wouldn't expect my money back. Obviously, this analogy breaks down somewhat because whether a candidate wins an election is ultimately outside of their control. Whereas for a Kickstarter project, presumably the vast majority are possible to achieve 100% of the time as long as they don't screw up somehow. And that's not even considering the quality of the final product- that the game is fun, the fancy electronic gizmo isn't a cheap POS, etc. (This is obviously buyer's remorse, although one could also argue these are fraudulent too if they promise a "fun" game, or a gizmo that's not a POS.)
Either way, if you read the TOS for Kickstarter, they actually only require that projects do their best. If they fail, they have various outs to continue compliance with Kickstarter. One of those outs is explaining where everyone's money went, and why they aren't able to issue refunds. Of course, they also go on to say that backers may still seek legal action against them for a failed project, but in most cases these LLCs are probably out of business anyway at this point. Regardless, they're in the clear from Kickstarter's point of view.