Crowd-funding Indological (and/or) Philosophical projects?

A few months ago, two valiant scholars I know (Mark Singleton and James Mallinson) proposed a project for crowdfunding on Kickstarter.com. They got the 50k dollars they applied for (in fact, they received even more than that) and are now happily funded for 1 or 2 years. I did participate to the crowd-funding and I do not regret it. A few days ago, another colleague (Michael Slouber) applied for crowd-funding, again on Kickstarter.com (his project is here). This time the amount of money he needs is much less and he is quite frank in explaining that he needs a few more months to complete his book, otherwise he will not be able to land in a TT job. I hesitated a bit, but then decided to help him (after all, I have now a job, but have been unemployed in the past, and will probably be unemployed again in the future). (Update: In fact, I had decided to support the project, but then failed to do it as it was too late, sorry Michael, in case you are reading.)

HOWEVER, I am not sure whether this is the right path, especially insofar as it might be an escape from the responsibility of convincing your peers within the Academia of the importance of your project (I am thinking especially of projects which may sound appealing but are not well-grounded). Apart from the anti-nihilist argument raised here by Eric Schliesser (i.e., if you are a nihilist, you have far less chances to be funded than an applied ethicist, no matter who is a better scholar), here are some thoughts by Steven Lindquist (Associate Professor in the US), expressed in a the Indology mailing list —which is visible to the public— (emphasis added by me):

Not only does crowdsourcing of academic work create its own "popularity" system for producing scholarship (traditional grant routes do this as well in supporting particular academic trends, but the key difference in my mind is that there is a formal, learned vetting system, even if it is not ideal). My larger concern relates to the privatization of funding for research, especially for individuals and for specialized works. Crowdsourcing of academic work gives an all-too-easy excuse for grant-giving and governmental bodies to disconnect from the funding of individual scholarship altogether. It does the same for the publishing industry, where they can require or increase already-required subventions. Arguably, these groups are already doing this in different fashions, especially under current austerity measures and the economic debacle many countries are in, but this sort of crowdsourcing could make their argument radically easy if it were to become at all popular in academic circles. Who can't envision members of government, when considering funding priorities, stepping back altogether and saying, "If it has any public appeal, the public will fund it" and use crowdsourcing as a justification to cut funding completely? Or a publisher doing the same in requiring a subvention? Crowdsourcing scholarship would certainly be appealing to certain university higher admin types who could easily justify eliminating internal funding altogether—especially for the humanities, where "practical value" and larger fund-raising potential are hard arguments to make.
While I am not a fan of slippery-slope type arguments, I wonder if we are hurting ourselves in the long run if we circumvent the standard grant vetting based on an academic market for a different sort of market-driven popularity. Perhaps certain types of work are more appropriate for crowdsourcing, I don't know. And, of course, I admit there is still the vetting that takes place with the publisher, though that industry is in flux. But are we going to see many more of these sorts of appeals? A future onslaught across list serves? Or to think it out further: are people going to increasingly turn to colleagues to fund any project they don't get a grant for or don't self-finance? How about requests to fund unfunded dissertation projects? Or to fund [insert name here]?

 What do you think? I am especially worried at the idea that one starts avoiding tough research and recurring instead to appealing videos to get funded. On the other hand, I myself have often repeated that we have to become responsible for the results we want to be achieved, and cannot any longer count on state-funding.

Thus, it seems that the dilemma, in my case at least, is not about crowd-funding or not, but rather about which projects should one crowd-fund. For instance, I am ready to finance one's project about actions aiming at saving small seals in northern Canada from being killed because of their furs, a project for which the Canadian government will surely not give any money (given that it probably earns out of the fur industry). By contrast, I am not ready to finance one's vacations on the Canarian Islands. More in general: I am ready to finance what the governments do not deem right to finance (for whatever reason) but is intrinsically altruistic and valuable, whereas I am not ready to finance projects which mainly regard one's own interests. If you need a break because you are close to a burn-out, I see your problem, but will not finance you (unless you are a close relative of friend).

Did you ever participate in a crowd-funding? Why (not)?

For a post in favour of crowd-funding, see here. On different platforms, don't miss this post (and its comments) and this article (I got the link through one of the commentators to the previous post).
 
(small note: I am writing this post on Tuesday the 22nd of May, but I will only post it on June the 28th, that is, after the crowd-funding of Michael Slouber is completed, since I want to avoid even the very remote possibility that one should not fund Michael's project after having read my post).