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.
You don’t become a billionaire in the first place without using a few tricks here and there. Why change?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Not against that. But different to what’s happening here though.
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From what I’ve heard anecdotally kickstarter is borderline more of a marketing / market research tool these days, not really the investment backer that it was originally portrayed as.
Kickstarter is basically used like pre-orders for stuff like this.
Watching that video made me sleepy. The thing on the back of your head is comfortable? I doubt it.
Also Philips doesn’t really exist anymore https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WE58YisgFeQ
&pp=ygUMU*********
FYI: You posted a youtube video with a pp parameter. It is not really clear what it does but as it is a unique identifier next to the actual watch id (watch=xxx), people assuming it is for tracking in some way. You might be leaking your identity or at least making it for google/YT possible to see where and who you are sharing things with. You can just cut of the &pp=xxx part to be save.
14 people donated without paying enough to get the reward… that’s… wow
Yeah, that I do not get. It’s basically donating money to a corporation just to receive marketing updates about a product? I don’t get it…
It’s pretty common in Kickstarter circles to pledge a dollar to gain access to the pledge manager and decide if you actually want to make a purchase there.
I assume that’s what those people are doing?
can you elaborate what the pledge manager is, and what the benefit of doing this would be? thank you!
After a Kickstarter ends you get access to the pledge manager where you can change your pledge if you want. So if you donate one dollar, you could then change it to a greater amount in the pledge manager after the end date.
oh ok, thank you. but that still does not help you for limited quantity rewards, which i guess is why those are so common?
Smells of money laundering
Where are you getting $500 million? This drive is only up to about $650k usd.
Oops, corrected, thanks. Was thinking half a million, ended up typing 500 and then a million.
Never let facts get in the way of a good story - Isaac Newton
It doesn’t even seem like a breakthrough product.
I have had a pair of super comfortable $15 earphones that I use for sleep for 6 years. They’re made of silicon and you can lay right on them and you wouldn’t notice at all.
Sounds nice, can you tell me what they are exactly?
That’s a darn good question I don’t have an answer for. They don’t have a name on them, and I don’t remember. If you look for silicone sleep ear buds you could probably find some.
Bose made this but wireless 4+ years ago.
lol “AI sleep headphones”
What a load of rubbishSounds like a money laundering scheme.
Apparently, the actual company behind the headphones is a British firm called Kokoon Technology Limited.
I can’t find anything that explains their relationship with Philips.
The company Philips is a very different beast from what it was. Almost all Philips products you know are produced by other companies who pay a licensing fee to Philips to slap the name on it. Philips itself is a shell of its former self and is focused on medical equipment. It’s tragic actually, especially since ASML is a direct offspring of Philips. It should be a trillion dollar company but bad management and strategic shortsightedness have ruined it.
But you can already buy a sleep mask with flat profile Bluetooth speakers in it for 20 bux off amazon. If you buy a new model (because stress sweat is gross) they charge via USB C
It’s not begging for cash, it’s seeing if there’s a market before they sink a bunch of R&D dollars into it.
Yup, just imagine a world where companies launch a Kickstarter for a show that is on the chopping block to give fans a chance to pre-pay for an additional season (with blu-rays or something as rewards).
Same deal with some tech. Big company, lots of potential products, but many are axed if they don’t think they can market them.
Philips can afford to take a chance on a product and risk losing money much better than regular people suffering from the combination of runaway inflation mostly caused by corporate greed and stagnant wages can.
Phillips CAN, but in a large organization like that there are a lot of politics going on.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this is someone’s pet project, but they can’t get funding for it because the higher ups don’t see there’s any interest in it…
“Well I’ll prove there’s interest!” (funded in 1 hour).
But why should they take a chance? You’re saying that like it’s surprising but I don’t think it’s unethical
They are protected from losses by their existing profitable market share ( in the billions) so it is unethical to use a tool created to help negate risk for those without the safety of an existing profitable market. There is an immense privilege in being the current dominant party in a market, and we live in a world that has put laws in place to protect companies who become the dominant party in a market instead of laws that equalize the market.
If we were all playing this game as kids, what phillips is doing would be seen as totally unfair, so why is it okay now that we are adults?
There is still risk even if you’re profitable now? If you don’t use mechanism to protect against risk you won’t be profitable for long. Nobody is harmed who didn’t consent to it by buying a Kickstarter project.
If anyone should take a chance, it’s the ones with vast resources that are increased by billions every quarter, not the people alreeady struggling to get by.
When you launch a product, there’s always a risk that it won’t be successful and offloading that risk on people who can’t afford it anywhere near as easily as you can while keeping all the profits if it succeeds is as unethical as consumer banks gambling with people’s life savings and then being bailed out at the expense of the same people they bankrupted.
Of course they can, but why should they? There’s nothing to lose for them (or anyone really) if they crowdfund it instead. It’s essentially a preorder and market research.
Like, you wouldn’t catch me dead paying into it but there’s nothing wrong with this strategy, until they steal the money and run, which they won’t because companies care about PR more than KS scammers do.
They claim to reach being fully backed within 23 minutes. Yeah, no shit if you set the goal as low as £10000.
They also artificially keep the super early bird remaining stock low to pressure backers into a snap decision. When I checked there were 7 out of 2310 left. That number will probably increase once it actually runs out.
now its 7 out of 2815
2820 now
I’ve seen this bullshit with them running crowdfunding campaigns linked off Facebook too. They claim it “allows them to more directly interface with interested customers” but it really just feels like a big corp that’s abusing a tool not intended for them
