How much a Model M, or better yet, a Model F, cost in today's dollars?
Unicomp manufactures Model Ms and sell the 104 keys for ~$108 (inc tax+ship). Haven't checked the Model F in awhile, but they're still rare and expensive.
Pricing niche products
171–180 of 368 posts
Re: Pricing niche products
#172It's disappointing how so much money is being poured into "mechanical keyboard kits" that simply re-create the old ANSI/ISO layouts that are rooted in old limitations from the days of the typewriter. Alternate layouts & ortholinear/ergonomic designs should be the forefront of the movement. All this focus on outdated designs makes the community "accessible" but also holds people back. The emergence of row-staggered 40…
The problem is you get to choose either a better layout or better keycaps. My Mitosis has a really great layout but I paid more for non-legended caps so I could get the profile I wanted. Other people with unusual ergo layouts go with non-sculpted profiles like DSA or SA R3 which I cannot stand. Or you can go ANSI and get wonderful profiles like MT3 and DSS. The compromise is to go with a standardized ergo layout like…
>The problem is you get to choose either a better layout or better keycaps.
Very much this. I'm very fond of Kailh Chocs and use them in many of my designs [1], while an excellent switch you have exactly two colour options White Blanks and Black Blanks. If that wasn't bad enough they're different sizes then regular MX so if you don't have a board _specfically_ designed for them you end up with gaps in the caps. It sucks because there is only so far you can go with low travel MX and good luck convincing someone to switch that's using 150$ of the latest GMK.
Re: Pricing niche products
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds about right to me. The book The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris discusses this phenomenon r.e. people need to feel the best at something so they pick ever smaller niches or hobbies where they can finally compete at a level where they have a chance to get to the top. I would recommend the book as a whole, it has a lot of other interesting info in it too.
Go for Emacs. It is niche, belongs to the oldest softwares, and a true mark of professionalism:)
And make sure you use tabs!
Re: Pricing niche products
#174Why do exclusive wines fetch several hundred a bottle when in double blind tasting tests oenologists fail to differentiate them from 6€ supermarket wine? Why does the same Malaysia made shirt go up in price 50x if it gets a top brand label attached a opposed to a cheap generic brand one?
Why does the same Malaysia made shirt go up in price 50x if it gets a top brand label attached a opposed to a cheap generic brand one? This one seems like a stretch. Top brands have a level of quality that is much different than a random Walmart brand. When you get to the differences between a $100 shirt and a $1000 shirt is when you stop finding a large difference. But there is usually a vast difference between a $5…
I'd say that when you're buying a $1000 t-shirt, there are around 3 different options:
1) High-fashion brand item. This is usually a middle-of-the-road item with steep designer markup. Gucci, Tom Ford, etc.
2) Collector item. It could be a $5 shirt which has suddenly become very expensive due to collection-value. Supreme, etc.
3) Hand-made small scale luxury brand item, using rare materials (Vicuña blends, extremely fine wools, etc.). They still have a markup, but more justified than those in 1). Loro Piana, Stefano Ricci, etc.
Re: Pricing niche products
#175I hate to nitpick but I assume you want to know: "I cannot understate the benefits of knowing the demand curve." I think you mean "I cannot overstate the benefits of knowing the demand curve." Because you seem to imply that it is a good thing to know the demand curve.
I just pushed up a typo fix, thanks for pointing this out!
Re: Pricing niche products
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious how many could distinguish a $400 keyboard from a $1200 keyboard. Once you get into a certain price point, the returns diminish so quickly that I figure most would be unable to tell a difference.
There are switches that cost several dollars each that feel distinctly different. In general though I agree, with a specific set of switches, there is likely not a quantifiable improvement to be had by spending $800 more. However, each keyboard case + switch + keycap setup is going to feel and sound slightly different. So it isn't really an objective improvement but they will likely be distinguishable from one anothe…
> However, each keyboard case + switch + keycap setup is going to feel and sound slightly different. So it isn't really an objective improvement but they will likely be distinguishable from one another. Some people are into it for the way it sounds.
This sounds pretty much like what headphone audiophiles say.
> However, each driver + housing + amp setup is going to feel and sound slightly different. So it isn't really an objective improvement but they will likely be distinguishable from one another.
Brands like Sennheiser have a very different sound from Audio-Technica which have different sound than Campfire Audio etc etc. Which is "better" is very subjective but there is a difference between say a pair of Sennheiser HD650 and Beyerdynamic DT1990
Re: Pricing niche products
#177These things have become so esoteric and expensive because the mechanical keyboard hobby is undergoing a more intense version of what happens to most hobbies/pastimes; the purpose of the hobby has transitioned from primarily "making/using the thing" to "obtaining and displaying ever more extreme versions of the thing to impress other people who know about the thing". I feel like this is an outgrowth of the basic huma…
It's probably also because there are a lot of highly paid young guys programmers that don't know what to do with all their money.
Re: Pricing niche products
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very much signalling, you want something that sets you apart from other users and if that means custom CNC'd cases, with harvested switches that have been lubed using the finest tears mounted on a custom plate. So you have something to ogle and show off to the others. And that's before we get into the scarcity territory that sees secondhand TGR Alices going for over 5K. It's weird, a good chunk of people buy my Georg…
It's funny how on hacker news apparently buying a fancy keyboard for your home where no one can see it is "signalling", but if you point out that wearing Apple watch, holding iPhone, and displaying those ear buds is also signalling/branding/status symboling, I am generally very aggressively downvoted. I'd say buying a mechanical keyboard with RGB lights and nice switches is probably 100X less signalling (several orde…
You're making an emotional response to something that you think is about you. Buying a mechanical keyboard and using it without showing it to anyone isn't what anyone was talking about. There are people that buy rare and expensive mechanical keyboards just to take pictures of them and post them on the internet.
I'm not sure why you tried to turn a discussion about hobbies degrading into wealth signalling into your distaste for apple products.
Re: Pricing niche products
#179I 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…
> My $60 GMMK, with 20 minutes of easy modifications, a $30 set of keycaps, and a $90 set of healios switches was the smoothest linear keyboard I've ever used.
Wow. Thank you.
I flirted with the "mech" community for a while a couple of years ago, and ended up with two boards:
A KBParadise V60 with Gateron Browns that I use as my primary keyboard for my desktop. That's mostly a gaming machine for me, but I do code on it quite a bit.
A bluetooth keyboard with low-profile Gateron Blues that I used with my iPad 6th Gen for coding (I use Blink to SSH/MOSH into a VM). That was a good keyboard but the feet broke off, then I upgraded to an iPad Pro and the Apple keyboard cover. It was collecting dust, so I gave it to my 11-year-old.
The GMMK looks like exactly what I was really looking for, for desktop use. I've got some research to do :)
Re: Pricing niche products
#180These things have become so esoteric and expensive because the mechanical keyboard hobby is undergoing a more intense version of what happens to most hobbies/pastimes; the purpose of the hobby has transitioned from primarily "making/using the thing" to "obtaining and displaying ever more extreme versions of the thing to impress other people who know about the thing". I feel like this is an outgrowth of the basic huma…
Very much signalling, you want something that sets you apart from other users and if that means custom CNC'd cases, with harvested switches that have been lubed using the finest tears mounted on a custom plate. So you have something to ogle and show off to the others. And that's before we get into the scarcity territory that sees secondhand TGR Alices going for over 5K. It's weird, a good chunk of people buy my Georg…
A side tracking question: How do you know they're not using them? (I'm a telemetry avoider)