(Full disclosure: am an angry Early Access player)
It's a bit more complicated than that. The biggest outrage doesn't stem from their half-assed "release" (which in itself feels more like an attempt to cash in on a failed project) but from their lack of transparency with regard to the project's funding.
As a consumer the funding appeared to work a bit like this: they got some initial investment to get them to a proof-of-concept demo they could put on Kickstarter; they then raised a large sum of money via crowdfunding on Kickstarter; then they put the game on Steam Early Access for some additional funding to carry the project for the last mile.
Going by the various analyses posted after the cancellation/release, it seems the actual funding worked like this: they secured an initial investment to create a something they could advertise on Kickstarter; they then used the Kickstarter money to pay back the initial investment, effectively putting their balance at zero; then they released the game on Steam Early Access to fully fund the ongoing development of the game; the sales didn't work out as they expected, so they effectively ran out of money and were forced to terminate the project.
So basically from most players' point of view their balance during the Early Access phase looked like this: initial funding + Kickstarter money + Steam sales. But in effect, it actually worked out like this: Kickstarter money - initial funding + Steam sales. The crowdfunding didn't fund the game, it paid back the initial investment. Very few players were aware that Doublefine entirely relied on the monthly Early Access sales numbers to keep the project alive (and that those sales numbers weren't even remotely close to the actual money they burned through at that time).
As for the so-called "release", the game was at alpha stage before it was canned. A lot of the originally planned gameplay hadn't yet been implemented and the features that were already there often suffered from game-breaking bugs. The final update was mostly a last-ditch attempt to weed out some of the bugs and make the game appear less obviously unfinished.
Personally, I think the game is a victim of mismanagement and overconfidence. Doublefine's other games have mostly been extremely successful and well-received. They are known to pay a lot of attention to detail and generally deliver a very polished style. But they treated DF-9 the same despite it being an entirely different genre.
DF-9 was very visually polished from the early Kickstarter onward. Most of its problems are in AI and the simulation aspects of the game. It tried to be a space sim / construction / management game but instead seems to have spent a lot of resources on graphics. This is even more obvious if you compare it with successful crowdfunded games in related genres like Rimworld or Prison Architect. These games have very rudimentary graphics but the actual gameplay (i.e. AI and simulation aspects of the game) was much more powerful at a much earlier stage.
Additionally, the project seems to have been much more expensive. The Early Access sales had to pay for the regular full-time salary of each employee working on the project. This means the project had a very large fixed monthly cost the sales had to cover entirely. Solo developers can try to cut their expenses to accommodate bad sales, established employees need to be able to expect being paid a consistent salary.
DoubleFine is still considered an indie developer. But it's important to understand that it no longer operates like one. It's a business with employees and project teams. Rimworld (Ludeon Studios) is effectively developed by one guy. Prison Architect (Introversion Software) was initially developed mostly by one guy. Minecraft (Mojang) was initially developed by one guy. In each of these cases that one person wasn't an employee assigned to the project by a company that paid him a salary, it was the founder or a co-founder of the company itself. Actual employees (with fixed salaries) would only come into it fairly late into the development (I think Ludeon Studios still is a single person).
I was not aware that DF-9 had been kickstarted. In fact, I looked it up and can't find anything about that - the only games that Double Fine used kickstarter for was Broken Age and Massive Chalice.
What I seem to find is that the first two weeks of sale on Early Access sales paid for the investment [1], which may be what you are thinking about.
Anyway, I agree with your final point - in this model sales must pay for the salary of the team working on the project plus additional development costs, and that's much easier when you are a single indie developer. Double Fine seems to be too big for that.
I still maintain my position that, if you're paying to get in the alpha of a game, you should be prepared if it develops to be of a different genre of what you are expecting, if it focuses on different things, if it's cancelled, or if it's simply bad. You can get frustrated, sure, but not surprised.
I only became aware of DF-9 when it had already been on Steam for a while, so I am basing most of this on what I have heard from those who were there at the start.
The Kickstarter thing seems to be a conflation of the first two weeks on Early Access thing you mentioned and DF having done at least one Kickstarter for an unrelated project in the same timeframe.
Unless I'm very confused, there wasn't any kickstarter for Spacebase DF-9. Just the initial investment and then the early access sales. The first two weeks of the early access sales recouped the $400k investment from Indie Fund and others which makes more sense (it would have been very hard to defend them had they used kickstarter to raise money and give it back to investors).
There was a kickstarter for Massive Chalice but that's a different game.
It's a bit more complicated than that. The biggest outrage doesn't stem from their half-assed "release" (which in itself feels more like an attempt to cash in on a failed project) but from their lack of transparency with regard to the project's funding.
As a consumer the funding appeared to work a bit like this: they got some initial investment to get them to a proof-of-concept demo they could put on Kickstarter; they then raised a large sum of money via crowdfunding on Kickstarter; then they put the game on Steam Early Access for some additional funding to carry the project for the last mile.
Going by the various analyses posted after the cancellation/release, it seems the actual funding worked like this: they secured an initial investment to create a something they could advertise on Kickstarter; they then used the Kickstarter money to pay back the initial investment, effectively putting their balance at zero; then they released the game on Steam Early Access to fully fund the ongoing development of the game; the sales didn't work out as they expected, so they effectively ran out of money and were forced to terminate the project.
So basically from most players' point of view their balance during the Early Access phase looked like this: initial funding + Kickstarter money + Steam sales. But in effect, it actually worked out like this: Kickstarter money - initial funding + Steam sales. The crowdfunding didn't fund the game, it paid back the initial investment. Very few players were aware that Doublefine entirely relied on the monthly Early Access sales numbers to keep the project alive (and that those sales numbers weren't even remotely close to the actual money they burned through at that time).
As for the so-called "release", the game was at alpha stage before it was canned. A lot of the originally planned gameplay hadn't yet been implemented and the features that were already there often suffered from game-breaking bugs. The final update was mostly a last-ditch attempt to weed out some of the bugs and make the game appear less obviously unfinished.
Personally, I think the game is a victim of mismanagement and overconfidence. Doublefine's other games have mostly been extremely successful and well-received. They are known to pay a lot of attention to detail and generally deliver a very polished style. But they treated DF-9 the same despite it being an entirely different genre.
DF-9 was very visually polished from the early Kickstarter onward. Most of its problems are in AI and the simulation aspects of the game. It tried to be a space sim / construction / management game but instead seems to have spent a lot of resources on graphics. This is even more obvious if you compare it with successful crowdfunded games in related genres like Rimworld or Prison Architect. These games have very rudimentary graphics but the actual gameplay (i.e. AI and simulation aspects of the game) was much more powerful at a much earlier stage.
Additionally, the project seems to have been much more expensive. The Early Access sales had to pay for the regular full-time salary of each employee working on the project. This means the project had a very large fixed monthly cost the sales had to cover entirely. Solo developers can try to cut their expenses to accommodate bad sales, established employees need to be able to expect being paid a consistent salary.
DoubleFine is still considered an indie developer. But it's important to understand that it no longer operates like one. It's a business with employees and project teams. Rimworld (Ludeon Studios) is effectively developed by one guy. Prison Architect (Introversion Software) was initially developed mostly by one guy. Minecraft (Mojang) was initially developed by one guy. In each of these cases that one person wasn't an employee assigned to the project by a company that paid him a salary, it was the founder or a co-founder of the company itself. Actual employees (with fixed salaries) would only come into it fairly late into the development (I think Ludeon Studios still is a single person).