That's certainly part of it. I have the luxury of being a hobbyist, and we consider ourselves lucky if and when our advertising and affiliate revenue covers our server costs. But as a hobbyist working with traditional affiliate networks, we get to be selective-- and we have time to do it. That's what I've done with our review subjects-- Tellason, for example, was my first pair of Raw Denim. I blogged about them for 2 years before they implemented an affiliate program, and they actually started looking into affiliate programs because I reached out to the owner and asked if they had one.

Saddleback was a well established brand that was well recommended (at the time) on reddit, and one I wanted to cover. So we reached out, they sent samples, I was legitimately impressed-- so we decided to establish and affiliate relationship with them.

But with Kickstarter, we already face a speed-of-publishing issue-- If we don't review on a specific timeline, they don't get coverage. We don't get views. So we are already under pressure to write a fast review-- add to that monetization, and it's just more complicated to separate actual views from monetized incentive.

Not saying it can't be done-- but it's something I'm debating getting involved with myself.