Pricing niche products

Post by yummypaint » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #10

equalunique wrote: post #6

It's disappointing how so much money is being poured into "mechanical keyboard kits" that simply re-create the old ANSI/ISO layouts that are rooted in old limitations from the days of the typewriter. Alternate layouts & ortholinear/ergonomic designs should be the forefront of the movement. All this focus on outdated designs makes the community "accessible" but also holds people back. The emergence of row-staggered 40…

>Alternate layouts & ortholinear/ergonimic designs should be the forefront of the movement. Ehh. There are a lot of good reasons to have layouts that are fairly common across all the equipment you'll use. From what I've seen, while there may be some advantages to different layouts and configurations, very few things are so compelling as to warrant a wholesale change outside of some niches like court stenographers for…

Post by katet » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

iikoolpp wrote: post #40

phaus wrote: post #2

I have a $600+ keyboard so I'm a part of this hobby. However, only a part of this can be explained by the expense of manufacturing at a small scale. The hobby fully embraces the drawbacks of the small scale and intentionally does nothing to try to improve it because the exclusivity drives prices up to an insane point. A typical group buy for a popular case sells out in minutes or days time after time. Clearly some of…

Whereas I own a £1 keyboard and I prefer it vastly more than any mechanical KB I had before.

Post by nicolaslem » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

iikoolpp wrote: post #40

phaus wrote: post #2

I have a $600+ keyboard so I'm a part of this hobby. However, only a part of this can be explained by the expense of manufacturing at a small scale. The hobby fully embraces the drawbacks of the small scale and intentionally does nothing to try to improve it because the exclusivity drives prices up to an insane point. A typical group buy for a popular case sells out in minutes or days time after time. Clearly some of…

Whereas I own a £1 keyboard and I prefer it vastly more than any mechanical KB I had before.

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #37

lewisflude wrote: post #12

I'm in the $600+ club too (Kepler that has a full brass bottom weight 6+kg, Kepler 65 with it's forged carbon top etc.) It's a really strange hobby. A bunch of people who really value and love keyboards, the thing that sits between a human and a computer, a tool that many (developers, writers, gamers) use every day for hours on end. Similar to how someone might invest in a nice knife if they love cooking, luxury-pric…

> forged carbon top You can't forge carbon. It's not malleable. It shatters if you try to forge it. Are you making a joke about people being gullible, or are there some exotic solid-state physics involved here that I don't know about? Oh, apparently you mean molded plastic with a chopped carbon-fiber filler? Heh.

Post by squeaky-clean » Fri, Oct 04, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

katet wrote: post #43

iikoolpp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whereas I own a £1 keyboard and I prefer it vastly more than any mechanical KB I had before.

Just in case this strikes anyone as dismissive, I too sincerely miss the old, beige keyboards that used to come with things like the old IBM, Tiny, MiTac, and Amiga brands I scavenged as a teenager. And those things were _robust_ - you could strip them down, soak them in detergent overnight, and have them good as new the next day without key caps falling off or the space bar sticking.