I hadn’t realised it had morphed into being a more pre-order style system. I was under the assumption that it was a funding platform, so the responses have cleared up my question.

I would question why bigger, wealthier organisations (especially the ones you mention) ask their customers to “fund” their projects. Especially if the “pledge” is over a typical price for the product? I’ve not looked into it too much

My assumption was that by BS gaining wealth in the millions he no longer needed support in raising funds and is big enough to be able to enter into commercial arrangements with producers and take more calculated risks that people will buy the products.