Oh, if it’s pure “people support”, let’s remove the pledge store and just have donation button. One that doesn’t give you anything in game, but supports the project.
Star Citizen uses clever psychology and social engineering to make people spend obscene amounts of money on in-game ships. I know people who are so catches and addicted to this shit they spend their family savings on the new ships. And that is by design.
They also regularly wipe the Persistent Universe for a reason, and the reason is not this bullshit aUEC farming, but the fact that ships bought for real money do not get wiped, stimulating purchases for your very real cash.
By going to release and having equal persistence for ships bought by all means, they’ll immediately slash their profits so, so bad, and they know it. They don’t want to go release.