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Comment by maxerickson | Hacker News Reader

If they don't deliver the rewards, they should return the backers money (I think Kickstarter says this, but I haven't carefully checked).

This quickly leads to not promising tenuous rewards, but hey, that's fine.

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Most failed Kickstarters fail because they run out of money. There is no money to return.

I disagree, when I've backed KickStarters that have failed I've never wanted my money back. It's a risk, it's money I'm throwing away to help a project exist, and I'm aware it might not happen. To me, that's just fine.

I don't think people should avoid high risk projects, I just think they should avoid promising to deliver them. Like I said in an earlier comment, make the reward some novelty trinket, not the complicated, never-been-done video game.

> they should return the backers money

Yes, though it generally comes up only if there is no money left to return. I think there should be a statement about what will happen if the money runs out. Note that CLANG is a project by Subutai Corporation and thus that company (not Neal) owes it's backers. Someone as rich as Neal Stephenson could promise to pay out of pocket if the company goes bankrupt, but that is not practical for many.

The money is already spent. In the article it states they returned about $700 to the dozen-or-so people who requested it. But the rest of that money, in addition to a lot of personal runway, is gone.

The comment I replied to is talking about Kickstarter projects in the abstract, not just CLANG.

In the case of Clang, he did actually fulfill all the rewards

He didn't. The prototype doesn't fulfill his promises made in the Kickstarter video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV39GiK4Hw0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrYVnBe3XjE

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang

I backed CLANG and as far as I'm conceded they did fulfill the requirements. Am I disappointed it didn't result in something better, yes. However, I was prepared for that, I saw my money as funding research in how to make a sword based video game.

How do you return money that has already been spent?

The easy way is to not promise any rewards that depend on completing a complicated project. Like, send people a novelty pack of gum and also figure out how to get them a copy of the game if it happens to be completed, just don't promise them the game.

Realistically, Kickstarter is a store and people won't pay if they aren't getting the result of the project.

Well, this discussion is about people who paid and aren't getting the promised result.

I think Kickstarter is neat, but I think people should probably approach the claims of the typical project with quite a bit of cynicism. That means (as a backer) not treating it anything like a store.

They did. The new ToS softens the language somewhat. Which IMO makes sense because if I had enough money to refund backers, then why did I need backers? Maybe there are some marketing benefits but they may or may not be worth Kickstarter's cut.

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