"The structure of crowdfunding encourages overpromising and under-delivering"

The article is correct in the observations: crowdfunding encourages overpromising and under delivering.
Usually, coming to this kind of fund raising with a realistic budget is a bad idea. Those projects usually fail.
Crowdfunded come with a much lower target and must manage to impulse funding momentum, which usually mean they are either underfunded or over funded.

The conclusion is wrong though: Everyone is not Molyneux.

The conclusion is : nobody is Molyneux any longer.
The likes of Molyneux no longer exist with the crowdfunding process.

Molyneux earned his reputation in an era when overpromising and under delivering meant as this was not a standard outcome.
As Molyneux strayed much from the standard, he earned himself the reputation he now is known for.

Molyneux could not earn a similar reputation if he was starting today, using crowdfunding.

He is getting bashed because of the reputation he acquired earlier, not because of his KS outcome, as it is the norm now.

The climax of it all: Molyneux is despized by people who keep praising crowdfunding.
They should acclaim Molyneux as a hero, as a vanguardist. He did what is now the norm in crowdfunding when you could actually get destroyed for doing it.

Molyneux is a precursor, he had vision.

Ripper said:

I agree. Although kickstarter backers are not investors in the traditional sense, they are still making an investment - still making a bet.

Click to expand...

Sure thing. Only a few products offer investment (like Train Fever)
The others are mere spending/expenditures.
Twisting existing concepts is useless when others already exist.