So, apparently there's a mail service where you can have postcards printed in bulk and mailed out, with various APIs, all without getting your hands dirty at all.
Nominally, this is great: using technology to solve problems is a wonderful past time. I encourage this.
For Kickstarter projects, however, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
Part of the allure, charm, lure of Kickstarter is the connection the project owners make to the backers. Sure, there's an monetary contract between the backer and the project owner, but there's a social one, too. And that social one demands a personal touch. That personal touch means to me, "Write the postcard to me" not "Automate the process so that you have no connection to me whatsoever."
Sure, there are projects with tens of thousands of backers. For the most part, those projects are from companies, and for those projects, I suspect the rewards don't include anything close to "hand written postcard saying thanks!" in the rewards. I don't particularly connect with those projects. I don't receive emails from them asking them how I got into airplane restoration (I haven't, I just loved the sound of your project), or if I'd like tickets to a spring training game since the project people expect to be working on the barn I just backed (how cool is that?).
For the companies, backing their project is an economic motivation: I want the reward.
For the individuals and small groups, backing their projects is a social and selfish motivation: I want them to succeed. I want them to realize their dream. I want them to make their lives and others' lives better by completing their projects, making something that didn't exist before.
For those projects, I don't want some printed postcard from some online service. I want to connect with the project. I want to smile, knowing I helped you.
So, no.
No no no no no. Don't use this service if you have a Kickstarter project where you're thanking people with postcards. Send me a postcard.
Know what? You don't even need a Kickstarter project to do that.
