That's one aspect of Kickstarter that never made sense to me -- why is there no way to take an "equity" stake? For the sums of money involved relative to the total kickstarter (oftentimes you see targets at roughly 1% of the target amount to be raised), I would think that some of the tiers should get some sort of stake.
Mel Brooks's, "The Producers", immediately comes to mind as we talk about crowd-sourcing financial backing for entertainment pieces. Kickstarter is great, but, like many new businesses, it creates (temporary) efficiency by bypassing regulatory restrictions that were put in place to protect us from criminals looking to game the system.
And apparently, people are willing to pay even without the creators having to give up equity. So even if that option legally existed today, why would they?
It's certainly true that some people are willing to pay. I consider myself a person who's primed for contributing to a kickstarter, and yet I've never pulled the trigger on one because it doesn't meet my minimum criteria for investing, which is a monetary return. I imagine I'm not the only person who feels this way, and to open up that option to people only brings more money to projects
And even now it's still not actually fully legal. Congress passed the JOBS act to allow for equity based crowd funding but the SEC has blown past deadlines to actually implement it and make it a reality. Who knows when it'll actually be fully legal, hopefully some time this decade.
