Kickstarter is actually a great idea. Like all powerful tools, the foolish people will abuse it to no end. But, for artists and musicians that make non-mainstream products, it works well because there are enough dedicated fans out there that are perfectly willing to submit a small amount of money to have more of that product that is unavailable otherwis (either because the artists would be forced to compromise on their product or be denied any funding in the first place).
Maybe in the future, useful and insightful research projects can get off the ground if an interested public considers them relevant enough to fund. I'm not a scientist or researcher but I know how difficult it can be to find funding for projects and how many potentially useful studies have been permanently grounded due to lack of funding (because funding comes from corporations, and corporations will not fund any research that runs contrary to their claims,which limits the types of research projects available).
Meanwhile, Obituary... Good luck guys. Probably just a funny coincidence, but didn't their guitarist go to prison recently for having a meth lab in his house? Maybe it was ex-guitarist... The guy who played with Death for a while? Anyway, they could probably ramp up some funds pretty quickly with meth production.