By "status quo" what I meant to imply was a straight line of continued ease of access increasing over the last decade or so.
Okay, I misinterpreted the original statement. Thanks for the clarification.
Kickstarter is a new and potentially dangerous funding mechanism. Kickstarter doesn't protect you from fraud. They specifically don't guarantee anything and tell you so if you read their help section. Your best weapon against fraudulent kickstarter project is "social pressure" according to their website.
I worry some about fraud, but what I worry about even more is people with good intentions, but for some reason are unable to follow through with the rewards. We've already seen a trend of projects being late (I must confess my own Kickstarter is running late). And while I haven't heard about Kickstarter projects that are complete no shows, I know of some RPGs that use traditional preorder and never materialize. It's only a mater of time before we see this on Kickstarter.