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Originally Posted by mycurlylocks
As for people worried about crowdfunding, isn't that essentially what Amazon did for the Echo, and Fire TV? They took pre-orders and authorized credit cards to make certain the buyer would likely to be able to complete the purchase.
I doubt very few independent start ups have the resources to not need crowdfunding.
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Amazon is a multi-billion dollar company with a great deal of trust and accountability.
Also, they never process credit card charges until the product ships.
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Independent startups usually don't have that trust and accountability, which is why relatively few of them become truly successful through crowdfunding campaigns.
It's also why it would be nice to have at least a few safeguards -- like, for example, the Fixed Funding arrangement, where if a campaign doesn't meet the minimum amount they claim to need, Indiegogo/Kickstarter/whatever automatically refunds the money.
Another nice thing is when the campaign in question has a great answer to the question of "what have you done so far?"
It would help their case if the campaign launcher had a good name in the online community. It wouldn't help them with accountability, but it would help a lot with trust.
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Bottom line is, too many things smell fishy.