TL;DR version: OpEd on Kickstarter, and more specifically on Ouya.
Answer to the headline, in spite of Betteridge's law, is 'yes they are.' More along the lines of why would you invest your money in a Kickstarter project? And the answer is that what you imagine it will be like greatly exceeeds what it actually will be like.
I pointed this out to in another conversation that making a good pitch is a lot simpler than making a good product (We were discussing the difference between hype and reality, our examples were the RasberryPi and the Ouya). And people buy into the pitch, sometimes overwhelmingly so, and when it comes up short they often blame the pitchman not themselves.
I experienced a bit of this first hand when putting together 'hobby' robotics projects with folks. There is no amount of disclaimer that can break the spell.
It reminded me of a t-shirt I saw which was an expression "Makers != Engineers" and I thought it a bit snarky at the time but realized there is a grain of truth there. Anyone can have an idea, but not all of them can execute on it.
"what you imagine it will be like greatly exceeeds what it actually will be like." According to Dan Gilbert, this is fallacy behind most life decisions. In both directions: we overestimate the future pain of negative events, too. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.h...
Answer to the headline, in spite of Betteridge's law, is 'yes they are.' More along the lines of why would you invest your money in a Kickstarter project? And the answer is that what you imagine it will be like greatly exceeeds what it actually will be like.
I pointed this out to in another conversation that making a good pitch is a lot simpler than making a good product (We were discussing the difference between hype and reality, our examples were the RasberryPi and the Ouya). And people buy into the pitch, sometimes overwhelmingly so, and when it comes up short they often blame the pitchman not themselves.
I experienced a bit of this first hand when putting together 'hobby' robotics projects with folks. There is no amount of disclaimer that can break the spell.
It reminded me of a t-shirt I saw which was an expression "Makers != Engineers" and I thought it a bit snarky at the time but realized there is a grain of truth there. Anyone can have an idea, but not all of them can execute on it.