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> If I'm having trouble financing the development new features for my SaaS application, should I just create a funding project for it?

Sure, why not? No one is stopping you.

> I wish someone could explain this phenomenon to me.

Many people invest small amounts of money in a person or group of people. There are risks, like any investment, and the payoff is a product which the investors will find useful or entertaining.

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it is not really an investment, it is more like charity... you more then likely never get more then what you paid for and you have a risk of loosing it all.

> you more then likely never get more then what you paid for

They tell you beforehand exactly what the payoff will be. If that doesn't sound economical to you, you don't pay in. There's absolutely no deception here. There's no promise of riches. There's just a promise of a product that is worth what you paid for it.

> and you have a risk of loosing it all.

...which is exactly like every other investment in the history of commerce.

But you have 0 chance of getting back more then what you spent, unlike an investment (the reward is always worth less then what you spent, if you think about it as an investment).

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