By your logic, a person winning the lottery should cap at 100K and say no thanks, I rather not piss of my friends family and colleges.
Most likely the public interest in this project will die out within 1-3 months. Hopefully they will not ruin their future lives endlessly trying to reproduce this incredibly lucky strike.
But while their at it, they should get as MUCH as they possibly can and totally and shamelessly go for it, hacking, hiring other people to work with them, getting drunk in parties at the other side of the globe, whatever...
Giving that money back saying they are afraid to disappoint some anonymous crowd would be totally nuts.
If they're smart they put the money in a foundation that can only be used for the project in a constructive way.
If they go getting drunk at parties on the other side of the globe there is a chance they'll kill kickstarter as collateral damage besides their own project.
Taking in funding - even if it is 'throw-away' cash - comes with a responsibility, this is not a 'lottery', and the crowd is not anonymous.
It's not about personal morality, but legal responsibility. For example, just what are their tax and commercial obligations right now? You can't just hand the IRS a copy of the GPL; a large sum of money like this will require them to spend some time and $ just to document and report it correctly so it doesn't get treated like a scam.
Most likely the public interest in this project will die out within 1-3 months. Hopefully they will not ruin their future lives endlessly trying to reproduce this incredibly lucky strike.
But while their at it, they should get as MUCH as they possibly can and totally and shamelessly go for it, hacking, hiring other people to work with them, getting drunk in parties at the other side of the globe, whatever...
Giving that money back saying they are afraid to disappoint some anonymous crowd would be totally nuts.