Okay, I think I understand this idea. If somebody else can cut corners by cheaping out on materials, or skipping testing, or relaxing tolerances, and their product still sells, then clearly your own standards were simply too high.
> I think this kickstarter culture has done more harm than good for makers because it made them chase instant gratification instead of substance.
This seems in contradiction to the first statement. If you take instant gratification, you're a symptom of more harm than good. If you take your time and do it right, you deserve to die because you're not going as fast as your competitors. ?
I won't argue that copying ideas and reimplementing them cheaper/faster doesn't have upsides. But one worry is that the immediate downsides are felt by the original inventors. Sure, cheap copying is nice for the consumer and reseller, but they're dependent on original inventors being incentivized. It's not impossible for inventors to go the slow, substantive route, in which they come up with a business plan and an idea, but that limits the work of creation to those who can manage that kind of timeline.
We have to pop the fairytale bubble that some of us live in. Marketing and sales will win the day. No matter how fancy your technology is, there will be competitors and rivals, and it won't really matter who was "first". Being first can, in fact, be a substantial disadvantage, since you don't have the response/feedback from a competitor's prior attempt to gauge and reference.
MicroPython seems to have acquired a reasonable level of traction in the community too.
If you look at how hard it is to pitch products like these and raise capital, then kickstarter is certainly living up to its name.
Nope you totally missed my point if that's your takeaway.
If you die off because some Chinese seller "stole" your idea which by the way you came up with first, then you deserve it because it means you didn't execute well enough.
I think this kickstarter culture has done more harm than good for makers because it made them chase instant gratification instead of substance. If you look at what happened to all the ambitious Kickstarter hardware companies, there is not a single one I'm aware of that's on their track to wild success.
People used to actually pour in their time and money (not just a slick youtube video) and risk all their reputation to build something that matters to them. I think at some point people decided to believe that you can take the shortcut via Kickstarter, but it's increasingly becoming clear that there is no such thing as shortcut.
It still sucks for them that these inventors are not rewarded for their brilliant ideas, but then again, I think if you are really serious about your product, you should invest more into it and make sure things like this don't happen.