Coronavirus a perfect excuse for shady crowdfunded gadgets

boing
1

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/03/coronavirus-a-perfect-excuse-f.html

…

1 Like
2

Here’s the video from Ash referred to in the article.

3 Likes
3

“A fool and their money are soon departed?”

I don’t get it…a drone is a drone. Yes they are improving, but it’s not like we are moving leaps and bounds on their technology. If someone is selling something that sounds too good to be true, that’s probably because it is. Sure at a certain point there are diminishing returns, but if you aren’t covering the minimum of what you need (or stated to be selling) then you are just wasting money.

4

99% of crowdfunding disasters are well-intentioned people with a good idea who vastly, vastly, vastly underestimate how difficult manufacturing products is. The naïveté with which people dive into these endeavors is stunning. It’s as though people are pretty sure they could design a race engine because their friends say they are a good driver. All they need is a lot of money.

1 Like
5

This. My ex just went through similar torture with a Kickstarter for a set of Tarot cards she created. The cards were already fully designed and ready for print, and in the Kickstarter she added a few goal rewards… add four additional cards - no problem, a book explaining the cards - torturous but she got it done. Then she received the money and went to get the cards printed, but instead of using her regular print company she went with another that gave more options. That of course led to a bunch of reformatting. Then there was a matter of payment - nightmare of a time just sending the money to the print company, as the bank outright refused to send it without a long list of info. FINALLY got that done, but it’s being printed in China, so now the coronavirus is killing any further delivery time.

They’re now two months past the target delivery date, + lord knows how long it’ll take to finally receive those cards.

So yeah. Sometimes that “bookful of excuses” is actually a list of real issues.

1 Like
6

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.