So, it's a kickstarter, without the kickstart if you only have 1 person sign up. Theres plenty of successful kickstarter projects, also plenty that did not deliver, so I wonder about the harm of being up front about intentions? In open source a lot do it for the passion of the work. They accept donations, some move to a paid model, but usually they are honest with their users and those users are retained more often than not. It depends on what is driving the company. Profits or passion.