Can Mycroft allocate only 10% of production to their backers?
The Mycroft project has begun to deliver their Mark II product, four years after their Kickstarter. They appear to be selling 90% of their production to new customers, allocating a mere 10% to their Kickstarter/Indigogo backers. If you were backer 2000, they must build 20k units before you see yours. At their current planned production rate of around 100/week, it will be another four years before they ship to all of their backers.
How can they get away with this? Is there any legal recourse here? Would you buy one knowing that this is how they treat their early backers?
Unfortunately the crowdfunding accidental ponzi is all too common. If the price paid by backers won't cover production costs (hint: it never will) then the only options are to go bankrupt or to use profits from full-price orders to subsidize pre-orders. If you sue, everybody gets nothing. If you wait, you'll be waiting a long time. Crowdfunding for hardware isn't a good idea.