The bulk of the kickstarter campaign was selling actual objects. These objects need to be produced, they have lead times, they have scaling issues both ways (there are economies of scale, but scaling up also involved a bunch of hiring — one can’t just snap one’s fingers). And Brandon Sanderson apparently wanted to sell however many people wanted to buy at a a preset price.

So what exactly is wrong with using kickstarter for this? It’s essentially a platform for placing orders for things that won’t be delivered for a while, which is exactly what happened here.

(Note that Brandon Sanderson and Dragonsteel have spent or committed a lot of the money already despite having delivered nothing yet. Those employees aren’t working for just equity without money or benefits!)