Kickstarter is a good thing. FP provides a great description of how it works and what it is accomplishing.

Like Coley, I also know a musician that was able to an album recording because of it. In that example, it is a little more like charity as the people contributing tend to be personally connected to the person looking for funding.

The most valuable aspects of kickstarter though are NOT charity and are simply mechanisms to achieve funding for manufacture. That is more about supply and demand. Just bounce around the site and look at some of what has been done.