How do Kickstarter and early access games sold on Steam function in that magic universe where "if you accept a preorder, you must offer a firm delivery date"?
As far as I can tell, there aren't droves of Kickstarter campaigns that keep getting sued or prosecuted on regular just for perpetually delaying their delivery dates (often for years).
Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms are framed as donations.
Steam Early Access allows you to request a full refund at any point up until the actual launch of the game (and then 14 days after based on the standard refund policy), even if you have played it extensively.
I think you're misinterpreting "you can request a refund at any time prior to release" – the release date is the date it comes out on Early Access, not any potential 1.0.
And re: kickstarter, I think "pledge" is in relation to the fact that you don't have to pay unless the project gets over it's goal. I remain very skeptical that pre-orders are as legally shaky as you claim.
They don't, just like the non-released FSD doesn't, because it isn't available yet.
The original claim I replied to was talking about the possibility of Tesla getting sued for delaying multiple times the release of a product that's in active development (and thus being unavailable). I don't see how the discussion about a product that the public has no access to "killing people" is relevant at all.
As far as I can tell, there aren't droves of Kickstarter campaigns that keep getting sued or prosecuted on regular just for perpetually delaying their delivery dates (often for years).