I’ve pulled this over to the Crowdfunding Thread, because my response is about what is OK and permissible to say regarding any crowdfunded project and not specific to the OffGrid product from birdkids.
Perhaps “and I really don’t like seeing any negativity” is just a manner of speech. If you mean negativity as lying to damage another then i would agree. But open truthful commentary to me is completely fair game.
To me once a company enters the commercial realm, and especially in the situation where someone has accepted another person’s money up-front, on the basis of a loose pledge to deliver a product in a certain timeframe, then truthful open comment about the delivery of that product is completely legitimate. Whether you like it or not.
In any marketplace, crowdfunding included, there needs to be rules and expectations — the very glue of commerce — that all participants follow, for that system to work, and thrive. It’s a freely struck agreement between two parties, and open comment by either side must be allowed.
One unwritten part of the “agreement”, is the idea of priority. The creator is offering priority access to a good in the future, in exchange for an up-front payment. This applies to pre-orders from a retailer, as well as the crowdfunding seller, as well as the commodity markets. Fortunately this part of the agreement is followed most of the time, despite it sometimes advantaging one side or the other in the agreement down the line, “in the future”.
What is it that is being offered for “up-front” money, beyond the altruistic reasons, when later on anyone can skip to the head of the line to buy a product ?
There are practical reasons when “priority” cannot be followed, but this needs to be an exception. Fortunately these sorts of exceptions are very uncommon, but when they do occur, like in this case, it is entirely legitimate to comment upon.
Now there are some specifics of the Kickstarter process, in particular their “comment space” which sits at the border of a place for free comment. I’ve concluded, that the “Kickstarter comment space” is not a good place to make free open comment, that it “belongs” in some sense to the seller.
But any comment made in a free and open forum like Elektronauts, given that it is truthful, is fair.