charlequin
Banned
Essentially you're giving them money that would otherwise be earning you interest or paying for something else now.
Money would "otherwise be earning you interest or paying for something else" for literally any other use of it as well. That's all money is good for!
The purpose of financing, on its core level, isn't to enable "investors" to make a profit; it's to enable companies to do actual things, with the promise of ROI really only present as a method of motivating large stacks of capital towards the end of providing that financing. Things like Kickstarter are alternate methods of financing, that remove almost the entirety of the risk and frictional obstacles of funding in order to draw said funding from sources that can't pledge large chunks of capital. The purpose is not achieving that secondary, side-goal of investment, it's to accomplish the real, underlying purpose of investment -- to let people use their money to bring into being the things that they want to exist.