This is a lovely piece of work; I think it's missing the point to speculate on possible profit margins, or the magnitude of a kickstarter project; the thing is the point here. Something so well turned out makes me want to make things, not buy them.
Your comment precisely describes the "Hacker Spirit" that I expect to see around HN. These are the kinds of projects that I gladly upvote.
Hacking (often just for the fun of it) is so much more rewarding and in the end provides so much more value than the usual techcrunch-style drama that often occupies most of HN home page.
