As I remember it, Kickstarter was initially focussed around patronage. eg, give some money to a musician or film maker to make a new album or film, and your 'reward' might be access to a work-in-progress blog and a digital copy of the album/film once it was complete. ie, the rewards had a low marginal cost, and didn't consume most of the money raised during the funding period.

At some point pretty quickly Kickstarter turned in to a speculative pre-ordering service.