It's also one of the worst things about kickstarter. The risk is moved to us, the consumer, and if it falls through, kickstarter isn't doing anything about it. We've basically funded some employee salaries, etc. with nothing to show for it.

I do think kickstarter is great, though.

Definitely agree that said risk is the big question mark about the whole platform.

Do you think that perhaps a few future scandals at Kickstarter would spur a "staged release" of funds to the project? (somewhat like how Greece receives its bailout funds in successive packages upon hitting milestones, rather than in one lump sum)

Very true. I do think in some circumstances it's valid for the consumer to take on the risk. There are a lot of fan projects out there where, from a profit perspective, it just doesn't make sense for a large backer to take a risk bringing it to market. However, if fan interest is high enough and potential customers are willing to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, it's an interesting option.

I'd personally love to see Kickstarter take it a step further and offer incentives where the backers can become more like Angel investors, but I'm sure there are a lot of difficulties involved in that...

Kickstarter is perfect for products that fall into the "disposable income" budget.

They're perfecting the definition of "disposable", with products that fall into a range of "If this turns out, I'll be in on it, if it doesn't, I'm out x-hundred bucks, so what?".

What’s wrong with that if you know beforehand?

Not everything will be on Kickstarter. This is not a systematic push to move responsibility to the customers. It’s just a fun distraction.