Philips has a net worth in the billions, $20.67 billion as of July 12, 2023. (Source link) Yet they decided to create a kickstarter, charging “early bird” buyers these earphones that’s designed for wearing while sleeping, basically the same as any other earphones, just slimmed down and cables running around your head.
What’s infuriating is that there’s dumbasses who actually gave them money to make a product ($500k million in total), so Philips is most likely not taking any risk making this, but will enjoy the profits.
The kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kokoon/sleep-headphones/posts
I thought the whole point of a kickstarter was people with a product, but lacking the funds to get the project actually going getting a kick start to get going… Not for billion dollar companies to beg for cash.
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Not against that. But different to what’s happening here though.
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Yeah I have no problems with big companies making kickstarters. When Brandon Sanderson launched his last year, I loved it, because he obviously would’ve had no issue getting those four books published, but it was a way to gauge interest in special editions and swag boxes.
Likewise, lots of board game companies have the games totally finished but basically use Kickstarter as a fancy preorder system
Just scrolling by and saw the mention of the Brandon Sanderson kickstarter, is that still up, completely missed that and was wondering it’s it’s too late to join in.
Oh yeah that’s been over for over a year at this point. We’re on month 7 of 12 fulfillment. Bummer you missed it! It was expensive ($600 for all four books and all eight loot boxes plus audiobooks) but it has felt super worth it for me so far (I’m a mega fan though to be fair)
You might be to late to join the kickstarter but you may be able to get the fancy special edition books. Here is the latest one it is a really good book and has some fantastic art I’m excited to see in the physical book.
If you don’t need the special editions the traditional publisher gets to put out their versions later on so I think you can get 1 and 2 already.
I came in here annoyed at them gaming the system and you totally turned my perspective around on it. Makes perfect sense.
Yeah, same, I’m not particularly shocked here. We often blame large companies for being oblivious to what their audience really wants; this is a large company trying to test the waters to better understand and produce what their audience really wants. I’d say that’s not a bad thing for whoever’s interested in those kinds of products for that kind of price.
Also, I bought a few things out of Kickstarter over the years, and some came out looking pretty good, some… not so much. When the Kickstarter campaign fails hard enough, the supplier ends up disappearing into the ether, and the consumer is left holding the bag. It’s the name of the game, it is what it is. Another upside of this Kickstarter campaign is that since there’s a wealthy company behind it, the people giving that money know that they’ll at least get something.
That’s not what they’re doing and that’s not what is happening. You’ve not even read the comments or done your research before just blurting out “we often blame”. People don’t want the subscription service, in fact more paywall options seem to be being introduced.
Ugh, sorry, the “do your research” phrase to deflect something makes me roll my eyes hard. It might kinda make sense for topics where there is actually research, like COVID prevention, or climate change; and even then, people seem to use it a lot to mean “read stuff I’ve read that I had preselected to agree with my views regardless of whether it’s backed by actual science”. But I find it even more out-of-place when the science we’re talking about is a Kickstarter campaign… It’s become such a catchphrase for thinly veiled attempts at gaslighting people.
But anyway, back to the substance of it. I definitely didn’t mean that anyone in this thread anywhere blames companies for that, I only meant it in a general sense. I agree no one here was particularly doing it. But I’m sure you’d agree that large companies being out-of-touch with their customers is hardly a marginal view.
If by “paywall options” you mean the cheap levels that don’t grant you the actual product, yeah, I posted another comment about those, I’m a bit puzzled why people would actually give their money for that. I just don’t see the point of those, so I can’t really judge the ethical aspects without understanding why on Earth people feel compelled to buy those. I would have expected those levels to have 0 people, but I guess they don’t.
However, for people interested in getting the product, and companies interested in wrapping up the product with those people’s input, I still really can’t see anything unethical going on here. It feel like a win for everyone.