This is just beating around the bush. If kickstarter wanted they could have just said that project owners are not required to provide the product since things may fail. But they don't say that because a lot fewer people would support projects.
The problem here is that as much as kickstarter wants project owners to be clear about the risks, they themselves don't want to do anything site-wide that may reduce overall revenue. At some point they'll realize they can't have the cake and eat it too.
This is the real disconnect with Kickstarter. It's not a preorder but, you are--in principle--on the hook to deliver the product (unless you don't include the product as a reward in which case you'll get a lot less interest). But, if you could actually afford to reimburse everyone if the project fails then why are you using Kickstarter anyway other than for marketing purposes.
The reality of course is that projects do fail and there may be breathless rhetoric about lawsuits and such on discussion boards but there's typically no money to be had and the online temper tantrums don't go anywhere. So the Kickstarter requirement doesn't have any real teeth.
Yeah presumably people doing kickstarters are at a minimum using an LLC, in which case if the project fails and the company goes bankrupt, nobody is getting anything from the dead entity.
The problem here is that as much as kickstarter wants project owners to be clear about the risks, they themselves don't want to do anything site-wide that may reduce overall revenue. At some point they'll realize they can't have the cake and eat it too.