Pricing niche products

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 the exclusivity is artificial.

An aluminum case that costs $300 is often 99% as nice as one for $1000.

There are designers lauded as geniuses that make cases that are almost identical to generic ones. It might have some kind of logo or inlay or a different color of anodized aluminum. Aftermarket they'll be worth insane amounts of money.

And with keycaps pretty much the entire thing is artificial exclusivity. $300-400 aftermarket for a set of keycaps is not unheard of.

There's nothing wrong with any of this, but as a happy participant I have to say the diminishing returns show up hard and fast in this hobby. Its all about fashion.

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.

If you want clicky, the same setup with a $30 set of Box Jade switches will get most people the best keyboard they've ever used. Mx blues feel like rubber domes afterwards.

Interesfing article that talks about some of this. I recommend reading it.

Why did I pay $600+? I wanted an Ergodox split keyboard with helios switches + backlighting, to see if my wrists would feel better, and I didn't think I was ready to build a kit that required soldering.

My Keycaps cost 170 of that. They are modelled after the Space Cadet keyboard from an old LISP Machine. This was uneccessary obviously but I liked them.

With respect to the high price, it seems pretty simple really. Some people have a fair bit of money that they're willing to spend on their enthusiasms. This wouldn't even be a notable question if, instead of mechanical keyboards, we were talking "designer" handbags, shoes, custom-made suits, etc.

The auction question is more interesting. Auctions are well accepted when there's clear scarcity or uniqueness in what's being sold. With manufactured good, we at least harbor illusions that there's some relationship with cost. But for niche items, that's not really true of course.

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% boards is a particular disappointing anachronism. Don't think ortholinear boards can compete? OLKB boards usually sell several thousand every time a group buy runs, and the OLKB main store has a several-month long wait list. People who buy keycaps for these can end up spending $140 for 140 keycaps, 48 of which they'll ever even use... $200 minimum if they don't want Qwerty. The demand is there.

People dream about that old GITS typing scene, but we'll never achieve it when our instagram influencers are always hyping this kind of stuff. Japan at least has the right focus - Corne, Helidox, Lily58, Biacco42, and NumAtreus were all created in the past couple of years, with countless more coming.

>the diminishing returns show up hard and fast in this hobby.

Of course that's true with lots of things. Cameras, audio equipment, video gear. Whenever I go into B&H Photo in NYC I'm always struck by how quickly the prices go up as you transition from pretty serviceable amateur gear to the pro stuff.

>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 which specialized training is justified.