Seems like exactly what’s happening here.

Kickstarter can also be used by companies to determine if there is enough interest in a product to make it financially viable to fully develop it. While the prototypes are probably completed before they launch the kickstarter, the community of interested buyers can be polled for feedback on the final specs and the community can provide steering for various features they’d like to see.

My first Lemmy blocked user, huzzah!

I’ve seen it in virtually every on-line store account setup in the past few years, asking me if I want to sign up for the newsletter.

IMHO, it should be opt in, not opt out.