I always found that confounding.

You put up a half-baked idea, and random people will throw a few hundred dollars at you to help you achieve it. And all they get is a thanks, and perhaps a mention, and possibly a tshirt.

And sometimes the person never had any intention of building the product to begin with. It was an elaborate scam.

Kickstarter knows many projects fail, which is why they want to ensure there are no guarantees or legal entanglements with the types of projects there. As a Kickstarter purchaser, you have to know what you're getting into. I actually was burned by one project (the HydraDock) but I honestly wasn't that angry; I knew the subtle difference between sponsoring a project and a pre-order.

Is there a platform that does? I've (not a developer) looked at IndieGoGo for help funding my software development since I've had trouble putting together an equity team to help get it from concept to at least prototype.