Seems like some other forums are getting side tracked around this. So here’s a place.
To me given Dan’s openness and the videos and the basically made object showing up in live places and being very use-able to me this seems a pre-order more than a crowd funding. Maybe I’m a fool, or maybe I’m missing something. It just really seems like a when I get the Glowforge I paid for not an if I get it, if they can get the technical problems solved and the product working.
Not quite sure what you are aiming for with this topic. But it feels like an appropriate response which remains in the vein you are aiming for is to state that there is a league of difference between making 10 of something by hand, and making 10,000 of something by assembly with parts mass manufactured from numerous suppliers.
I suspect nobody has any doubts that some kind of laser cutter will arrive at their doorstep someday. So in that regard it is unlike many of the worst examples of crowdfunding, where the people asking for money have nothing more than a vague concept.
But this is miles away from a true pre-order, where manufacture process has all been arranged and tested and timelines are known with high precision.