Begstarter

I've come relatively late to the kickstarter party. Not fashionably late but late enough that the good nibbles have already gone and all that's left is the plates of rapidly hardening cheese and pineapple on a stick.

I've backed a few good projects, some which have been run really well by self confessed "amateurs". But I've pretty much had it with KS now. The bubbles burst, when something appears on the pages of The Daily Mail you know its time to move on. It happened with eBay, after the DM made a feature of it it exploded and came into the public eye. Good for eBay, but it brought scammers too.

Now its a trend that's repeating with Kickstarter.

Recently there's been an explosion on begging projects, it started with multiple projects about making potato salad but diverged to other foods. These projects are only asking for a small amount, usually less than $10 but there are so many. It makes finding worthwhile projects a chore and these people are just "in it for the money" or just "in it for self promotion".

I'm not saying all KS projects have to be about the backers receiving a physical item at the end of it. I've been altruistic with a few of my backed projects because I thought the cause was worthy.

Even before Kickstarter existed I backed this guy - 50pence in da pod, you can see me at number 65. I backed it because he made his case in an entertaining way, and was insisting on only being given 50p. Any excess was returned.

But asking people for money to buy yourself a meal, and promising "photos of the event". No, screw that. Buy your own meal or donate the money raised to charity.

The writing of some of these projects pages is so poor too, basically reading "I want food, give me money". What you need is an education in manners, go away.

But it gets worse,there's been a few projects recently with even larger begging bowls. "I like to take photos so buy me a camera". "I want to play games so buy me a Playstation". Well I do too, I also work to buy things. And if I can't afford them, I go without (or get finance but that's another sorry tale).

The world doesn't owe you a shiny toy.

What this all shows is that the Kickstarter system is open to abuse. KS themselves state they have no control to make sure creators fulfil their promises, which I can understand but they obviously don't vet projects very well before they go live. 

Or simply don't care. KS get a cut of funds received if the project succeeds so is there any such thing as a bad project from their point of view?

It brings to mind Lionel Hutz on selling houses "The right house is the house that's for sale, the right person is anyone". 

As I said above, I've backed some cracking projects both with and without receiving a physical reward. I'll start reviewing a few soon. But for now I think I'll call it quits with backing anything else, unless something really cool comes along.