Is this what Kickstarter is For?
At the rate of increase in new projects it will someday be impossible for me glance at each new project as it shows up on the Kickstarter website. It is not uncommon to see a hundred new projects launch on any given day anymore. I estimate that perhaps 10% of those projects are relaunches, but even so, that is a lot of activity – a fivefold increase in projects from when I started this habit a little over a year ago.
It makes it harder and harder to catch the ones the ones that are worth talking about, either because they are awesome, or terrible. Today’s project almost slipped through the cracks in fact, and even after I found it, it has left me conflicted.
Is this what Kickstarter is for?
A company creates a video app for the iphone and ipad and it apparently does well. According to the creator’s website it has won multiple awards (though the website only links one) and is doing gangbusters. So well in fact that they want to expand their offering to Windows and Android and share their video app with the world. The only problem, at least for me is that they want to raise money to pay for the development of the program so they can then sell said program.
Presumably the app on the iPhone is making money, and I can’t find anything that says they needed crowdfunding to create that app, so I confess – I’m not sure of the logic here. Either the demand is there for an OS and the project is viable, or it isn’t and they shouldn’t make the app; I feel like crowdfunding occasionally creates perverse incentivisation and this is one of those times.
But I would never have noticed this if they Filmic had not opted to launch two projects at the same time. Thats right they launched two different projects with nearly identical verbiages save that one is for Windows and one is for Android. My favorite part of this twin launch is that both projects should deliver their rewards by January, and the verbiage in the challenges section about “Do one thing and do it well.”
Seems a bit problematic to me. The real takeaway from this project (besides don;’t find things you’re going to do anyway,) is that Android is much more in demand than Windows: to date the windows version of the project has raised only $50, where as the Android version has raised over $25,000.
So what do you think, is that what Kickstarter is for?
Caffeineforge 
“Kickstarter is the ideal place to measure the demand from Android users”
Sounds like people asked for it, and rather than just do it and see how well it sells, they basically want everyone to buy it up front or they won’t do it. So no, not really what Kickstarter is for in the sense of “this is what I need to get this project off the ground”.
But maybe the question is “does it matter?” Kickstarter sure as hell isn’t going to complain if people use it that way, and the argument against it is more of a moral grey area than an objective “improper use” one. I think the only thing to really do is not support it, because if other people are fine with it, there’s not really an argument that will change their minds.
But if you wanted to rant about it anyway, I’d read it. 😉