What are you doing then because you haven’t made a good point yet? And like I said if you chose to buy something that had no proto, then that’s on you, don’t try and start some grand hate thread on group buys when you failed to do what might be the simplest part of buying into something, making sure the product actually exists or even could exist.

That’s already how it’s done. You’re literally arguing against yourself at this point.

When I said that if you ran it in your world no one would have protos before production because they’d have to use funds to buy the supplies and your response was that’s how it already is. I didn’t say be a hype boy either. You’re just frustrated that there isn’t a logical solution. Which is fair, but you’re digging a hole here.

Yeah but zeal had prototypes for the Xeno, and your directly arguing that this hobby doesn’t do that. So again my point stands. I’m not happy with delays either but currently there is no reasonable other option for extremely niche hobbies, and your solutions was impractical.

Yeah I don’t know where you’re joining group buys that don’t do prototypes or have proof of concept like gmk’s history of caps. And if you join them that’s your own fault. You keep bringing up zeal but their switches all have samples and they prototype their stabilizers. So to be completely honest it sounds like you have no clue what you are talking about.

In what world? Switches get samples, the molds don’t change for gmk (I’d like to see pre group buy color matching), and the vast majority of boards probably like 95% get prototypes. So that’s not how group buys work.

A laser cnc is not the same as a mill. A mill is required for making a keyboard case. A laser can cut plates and stuff, thin sheets.

How am is someone supposed to afford 25k for a mill pre group buy. I sure as hell am not spending 1k ona keyboard where the group buy runner says hey! I have idea for a keyboard here’s the render. I don’t know how to cnc but I’m going to buy a mill and annodization vats and learn how to do it. Oh and the board costs more than a keycult.

That’s how you encourage scammers.

See this is the big problem. People who have no idea what things cost are offering unrealistic solutions. I used cnc mill is about 25,000 and you’re not even talking raw material cost, or annodization vats or anything. Welcome to the real world. You can’t just make a business like that, especially if you aren’t born into money. RAMA is a horrible comparison because he had money before his keyboard business.

A cnc machine costs far far far more than that, it was an example of living in your perfect world that is completely unrealistic.

But what your explaining isn’t sustainable for a niche hobby. You expect every group buy runner, that wants to run caps for example, to do the tooling and injection molding themselves? You’re going to be paying a grand a set because that’s a ridiculous idea. Every person that wants to run a keyboard needs a cnc machine and mill and the warehouse space? You’re going to be paying thousands for just a case? As a runner why would I pay more for American production, for example, when it’s more expensive, has just as many delays, and honestly isn’t any better in quality and often times worse in quality than Chinese manufacturing? Make no mistake I’m not defending gmk or any one else that has absurd delays, but in your perfect world I better be able to pick up a cnc machine for $1000 down the street and have some sort of universal income so that I can quit my job, sit in my garage and machine keyboard cases myself.

The vast majority of the time the group buy runners are giving what timeline they are given by the manufacturers. What you recommend is pretty unrealistic. I agree that the manufacturers should be held to a higher standard but at the moment everything is messed up globally. China still has mandatory Covid shut downs closing and ending production, the global supply chain is actually still messed up, there are a ton of things outside of the runners control that are affecting all of these group buys. The runners you should support are the ones who are constantly updating through all the delays and being transparent. Not the ones who just sit in silence with no updates.

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Hey! If your plan is to eventually sell these, we ask that you use the promotional flair. I've added it to your post this time. :)