More on Kickstarter Ethics

Apropos of my recent posting about Kickstarter ethics, here's a story about con men who've been flagrantly fleecing Kickstarter supporters as well as AirBnB hosts.

It can't be helped. Ideally, Chowhound would have remained a place where earnest food lovers shared their favorite tips. In reality, after the first year all behind-scenes time was (and is still) spent staving off a blizzard of shills, con men, promoters, and social media marketing professionals.

Every earnest effort eventually gets gamed...massively. That's why there's so little earnestness in the world (and why it feels so charming when it does occasionally arise). At a certain point, either 1. the operation's earnestness evaporates, 2. the operation gets so bunkered that it's no fun anymore, or 3. the operators shift their business plan to leverage the gaming (let's call this one the Yelp approach).