Philips has a net worth in the billions, $20.67 billion as of July 12, 2023. (Source link) Yet they decided to create a kickstarter, charging “early bird” buyers these earphones that’s designed for wearing while sleeping, basically the same as any other earphones, just slimmed down and cables running around your head.
What’s infuriating is that there’s dumbasses who actually gave them money to make a product ($500 million in total), so Philips is most likely not taking any risk making this, but will enjoy the profits.
The kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kokoon/sleep-headphones/posts
I thought the whole point of a kickstarter was people with a product, but lacking the funds to get the project actually going getting a kick start to get going… Not for billion dollar companies to beg for cash.
Yeah, same, I’m not particularly shocked here. We often blame large companies for being oblivious to what their audience really wants; this is a large company trying to test the waters to better understand and produce what their audience really wants. I’d say that’s not a bad thing for whoever’s interested in those kinds of products for that kind of price.
Also, I bought a few things out of Kickstarter over the years, and some came out looking pretty good, some… not so much. When the Kickstarter campaign fails hard enough, the supplier ends up disappearing into the ether, and the consumer is left holding the bag. It’s the name of the game, it is what it is. Another upside of this Kickstarter campaign is that since there’s a wealthy company behind it, the people giving that money know that they’ll at least get something.