Is Kickstarter covering up a scam? An open letter to CEO Yancey Strickler.
Dear Yancey,
I love Kickstarter. When I backed my first project in 2012, I was happy and excited to be given the opportunity to support creators with my pledge. Since then, Kickstarter has been an endless source of inspiration and allowed me to acquire tools which affected my workflow as a visual artist in a significant and positive way.
However, there’s one project that is forcing me to change my mind about Kickstarter and its apparent integrity: in less than 24 hours from now, a shockingly misleading project is about to end, and 290.000 $ from backers will be gone into what I think is a huge SCAM.
I’ve tried everything I could to share my concerns with your team: forms on your site, emails and tweets, and I met 4 members of your staff in person at Sonar festival, but I was left with a deafening silence.
Today, I can’t trust you anymore, and I am about to delete my KS account and encourage my friends to do the same.
[UPDATE: July 10th] The Holus project just reached its funding time a few minutes ago, with 297.790 $ from backers.
Despite the diffusion of this open letter on social networks, Yancey Strickler didn’t care to comment, neither did Kickstarter.
I feel cheated by one of the rare companies I was trusting and believing in, so I just deleted my account.
[UPDATE: July 14th] Yancey Strickler finally responded to this article, and I wrote a new post: KICKSTARTER IS BROKEN
Here’s a short version of the story: