Pre-Order Vs Crowd Funding

Which is better?

Pebble, the fitness monitor wearable company, closed up shop earlier this month, just as it was about to launch Series 2 of its 'smart' watch. It was taking pre-orders (offering a 10% discount) while at the same time running a Kickstarter campaign. When it announced it was no longer able to remain in business (assets acquired by FitBit, apparently) it said all those who had paid but not received goods via Kickstarter will get a refund, while those who pre-ordered would not be charged.

I've got a bit of a problem with crowd funding campaigns, because they don't prove a business model; for a great example check out Print The Legend on Netflix. It also worries me that, once the first wave of early adopters has been supplied, you have no idea if there is a bigger market to tap in to, willing to pay full price.

Pre-Orders offer a good test of the product's viability. With the right promotion, I should imagine they generate a lot of interest - I don't know if it is cost-effective, from a marketing point of view, to offer either, or both. But it seems that neither can give a 'warm and fuzzy' feeling about the product's longterm potential.

Perhaps more worrying is that, in both cases, the business model (cost of manufacturing versus selling price) doesn't get tested, which can mean all of the money crowd-funded gets spent before any profit is turned. I instinctively think this is more common for crowd funded campaigns, but don't really have any evidence to back that up. So to answer my own question I suppose pre-orders is the right option. But people don't tend to donate money just for the love of a project with pre-orders.