Hyper Gumbo

Out of the 7 musical projects I’ve sponsored on Kickstarter so far, only one has delivered everything they were supposed to, and recorded their cover song. One is in jail, awaiting deportation, so who knows where that project is going. Another responded to my first email and says they’ll have my stuff in a month or two. One responded within hours of my posting something to the project page, having never responded to emails, and sent me a picture of the package about to go into the mail this morning. A third, though not responding directly to my query, has posted another update which, while setting the stage for more disappointment (the artist apparently never had plans to follow through on the physical discs unless he got a regular label to sponsor him, grar), claims that someday he will. One artist has made no response at all, and seems to be actively ignoring kickstarter now, since she is posting to her facebook and website.

The 3 projects that are for physical goods seem to be progressing more reliably, if status updates are to be believed, though one is getting into the danger zone of non-communication (2 weeks since “shipping soon!”).

The software project isn’t saying much, but their expected lead time is a bit longer.

In the end, we shall see. I certainly won’t be sponsoring anything more, until Kickstarter come up with some way of escrowing the funds to ensure people get what they paid for.