Kickstarter Is Not a Store ⇥ kickstarter.com

In response to a number of recent high-profile issues, Kickstarter is changing their rules for hardware products:

It’s hard to know how many people feel like they’re shopping at a store when they’re backing projects on Kickstarter, but we want to make sure that it’s no one. Today we’re introducing a number of changes to reinforce that Kickstarter isn’t a store — it’s a new way for creators and audiences to work together to make things.

It’s hard to make that distinction. Yes, you’re merely betting on a product’s success, but you are doing so with the expectation that you will receive an example of it in the end. It’s crowd-sourced venture capital, but with a product reward instead of a financial one. That’s what makes it feel like a store.