Dev wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 16:36:

Beamer wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 15:54:

Dev wrote on Feb 13, 2012, 15:50:
But that's the beauty of the system. People can set whatever funding minimum they want and if its not reached, no one gets charged. There's really very little risk to backers. So no harm if it suddenly gets a bunch of big budget kick starters. If they all indeed do fail, then that will be noticed too and in a few months it should settle back down. And who knows, maybe one or a few will succeed.

There's always risk when you're paying for something that hasn't been created yet. You're really asking a lot out of consumers, and they will remember getting burnt. People don't get charged if funding isn't reached, but there's nothing if completion isn't reached.

And yet, with the average successful funding rate being 40%-50% in the last 2 years, odds are anyone who has funded more than 1 project has already experienced a funding failure (unless they only fund projects after they become successful, which is a valid strategy). And the funding success rate increased last year over the previous.

So far there's no sign that that failure rate has decreased the popularity of the service. In fact it QUADRUPLED in size in a year (approx $25 million in 2010 and approx $100 million in 2011).