I don't disagree with that either. But, for me, and I can't say whether I'm in the majority or the minority, nor do I care, but I will now literally never use Kickstarter for anything lest my project be deemed to avant garde by the populace at large.
I do sincerely hope, not for Kickstarter, but for us, that this doesn't discourage truly innovative art projects from being crowdfunded, as I think that sets art back, contrary to Kickstarter's stated goals.
In short, they've made it all too easy for me to believe that a book series like Harry Potter could be shut down by the religious right, or that Huck Finn would never have been Kickstartable, nor Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine", etc.
I think for your disaster scenario to be taken seriously there would need to be major cultural works--peers of Harry Potter, Huck Finn, and NIN--that were products of the Kickstarter process. Using examples that predate crowdfunding to discuss the negative repercussions of not having crowdfunding is a little ridiculous. The avenues that produced HP, HF and NIN still exist.
The point was clearly hypothetical. I wasn't looking for a statement with 'impact', so much as a way to illustrate that there are works of art that can also be considered controversial.
There are clearly books, movies and songs being funded by Kickstarter. I want the media I consume to challenge my beliefs, and to challenge my ways of thinking.
And again, I don't dispute that this was perfectly within KickStarter's right to act the way they did, and while yeah, I don't like it, who am I? Nobody. That doesn't mean that it doesn't bother me, and that doesn't mean that it isn't somewhat ominous, at least in my opinion.
I do sincerely hope, not for Kickstarter, but for us, that this doesn't discourage truly innovative art projects from being crowdfunded, as I think that sets art back, contrary to Kickstarter's stated goals.
In short, they've made it all too easy for me to believe that a book series like Harry Potter could be shut down by the religious right, or that Huck Finn would never have been Kickstartable, nor Nine Inch Nails' "Pretty Hate Machine", etc.