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Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

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Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#61

Post by kenhwang »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #59
kenhwang wrote: post #46

Drop ran into the problem every other high quality retailer/manufacturer did before it, when you sell good enough stuff, you don't get repeat business fast enough because the original is still working, and eventually fail due to lack of new buyers to sustain the business. I'm still using my Drop CTRL keyboard from 2018. I haven't bought another keyboard since then because it's a good keyboard. Going through my order…

I mean even cheap keycaps won't wear out for many years for most people, so I don't think quality is a big factor. I got tons of keycaps from Ali Express which are just as good as the high quality stuff, in fact most of them are made on thre same machines... So not sure if that was really the issue, people ordered keycaps because they liked the design, e.g. the Dasher MT3 set was super popular due to a similar one be…

Keycaps were the expansion that came after the era of group buys and keyboard/headphones/audio/EDC curated niches. I'd say because the preceding eras weren't sustainable.

If you think about it, keycaps makes sense strategically. They're cheap and small enough for hoarding, with a wide range of easy customization, with all sorts of trends that could be capitalized on for seasonal/repeat customers, they also last basically forever and are light so it's dirt cheap to ship. All for probably 90%+ profit margin.

Why grind away at heavy, expensive, complex, fragile, or specialized hardware for thin margins when you can ship colorful plastic at high markup? Sell the disposable personalized accessories to the hardware: keycaps, cases, dongles, cables, straps!

Well, customers like you wise up and cut out the middleman and buy straight from the source. If there's a profit to be made for those things, almost anyone can make those things for niche sized demand.

Seems like Corsair is taking it one step further, why even have a quality/niche hardware base? Just do trendy accessories or modifications to commodity hardware.

Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#62

Post by eitally »

kenhwang wrote: post #46

Drop ran into the problem every other high quality retailer/manufacturer did before it, when you sell good enough stuff, you don't get repeat business fast enough because the original is still working, and eventually fail due to lack of new buyers to sustain the business. I'm still using my Drop CTRL keyboard from 2018. I haven't bought another keyboard since then because it's a good keyboard. Going through my order…

I bought a few things via Drop in the early days, when it was still Massdrop and they weren't exclusively focused on keyboard and headphones. When they shifted their focus... I just wasn't their target audience anymore.

Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#63

Post by altairprime »

dsr_ wrote: post #48
kenhwang wrote: post #46

Drop ran into the problem every other high quality retailer/manufacturer did before it, when you sell good enough stuff, you don't get repeat business fast enough because the original is still working, and eventually fail due to lack of new buyers to sustain the business. I'm still using my Drop CTRL keyboard from 2018. I haven't bought another keyboard since then because it's a good keyboard. Going through my order…

The retailer's problem can be solved through diversification. If you sell enough different things, and they are all of good quality, people will come back to shop for other things that you sell. The manufacturer's problem needs more capital, because it is also solved through diversification. If the total market for space oscillators is 120,000 a year, with about a 2-3% annual growth, making the best space oscillators…

> The retailer's problem can be solved through diversification.

Perhaps in a textbook economy, yes; but in the U.S. economy that Massdrop operated in, continued sales of products hinged upon wages being available to spend on optional desires. That economics assumption has not held: most people’s inflation-adjusted pay decreased over Massdrop’s lifetime while the inflation-adjusted costs of necessary goods increased (thanks, enshittification and shrinkflation!), and so their potential customer pool would have been steadily draining throughout their operating years. The private equity model of ‘diversify to generate horizontal revenue’ only functions in a wages-dropping economy for retailers selling necessary goods, such as Walmart; for Massdrop, whose goods are exclusively non-essential, they had little chance to survive by increasing product diversity. (And effectively none whatsoever, considering how small their niche was to begin with!)

Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#64

Post by ebiester »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #57
ebiester wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was a bad acquisition and their parent company is now in a bind, but I don't see a world where they can't sell it somewhere. Hopefully it doesn't end up in private equity hell because the 600/650 line is legendary and the HDB 630 is a true leap forward.

> Hopefully it doesn't end up in private equity hell By this time next year we'd be seeing some Chinese owned company producing "Sennheiser HD9000000000+ Pro" headphones that are leftover Shrek themed earbuds that smoke when you turn the volume up too high.

I think that's unfair - if HiFiMAN, Moondrop, or even KZ bought up the Sennheiser assets there would be very little difference. (HiFiMAN had QC concerns 7-8 years back but as far as I've heard they have been much better over the last 5 years.

Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#65

Post by __mharrison__ »

Crushable-E wrote: post #27
__mharrison__ wrote: post #25

Bought my ergoxdoxen from them when they were just starting out. They even sent me a gift box because my blog post about the keyboard had driven so much traffic. It had a CST mouse in it (among other things). Still using the mouse. Nowadays you can buy awesome small batch keyboards from small vendors.

Do you have a recommended small vendor? I am on the look out for some new switches!

Just bought a lily 58 from these guys. Highly recommended https://typeractive.xyz/pages/build#lily58_choc

Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#66

Post by mapontosevenths »

ebiester wrote: post #64
mapontosevenths wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully it doesn't end up in private equity hell By this time next year we'd be seeing some Chinese owned company producing "Sennheiser HD9000000000+ Pro" headphones that are leftover Shrek themed earbuds that smoke when you turn the volume up too high.

I think that's unfair - if HiFiMAN, Moondrop, or even KZ bought up the Sennheiser assets there would be very little difference. (HiFiMAN had QC concerns 7-8 years back but as far as I've heard they have been much better over the last 5 years.

Fair point. I have a set of HiFiMAN cans that I adore.

Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#68

Post by nilleo »

Anonyneko wrote: post #42

I'm still sad that the Drop THX Panda never took off (planar-magnetic cans that had 3.5mm passive mode, USB audio mode, and wireless mode, all of which sounded nearly identical thanks to great tuning). It had a physical design flaw with hinges that kept breaking after a few months of use (happened to both of mine), but surely that could have been easily fixed. These could have been the ultimate power user cans, but t…

Loved those headphones. I forget what defect mine suffered from, I think they were ultimately bricked and I was offered a sincere apology and a full refund well over a year after purchase -- some of the best support experience I've ever had.

Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#69

Post by lmz »

digitalPhonix wrote: post #67

I thought Corsair gave up on the consumer RAM market because Altman would pay more. How is Drop going to compete internally for their resources (time/attention/rtc.) when the entire consumer RAM market can’t?

I think you're confusing Corsair with Crucial/Micron.

Re: Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair

#70

Post by starky »

dsr_ wrote: post #48
kenhwang wrote: post #46

Drop ran into the problem every other high quality retailer/manufacturer did before it, when you sell good enough stuff, you don't get repeat business fast enough because the original is still working, and eventually fail due to lack of new buyers to sustain the business. I'm still using my Drop CTRL keyboard from 2018. I haven't bought another keyboard since then because it's a good keyboard. Going through my order…

The retailer's problem can be solved through diversification. If you sell enough different things, and they are all of good quality, people will come back to shop for other things that you sell. The manufacturer's problem needs more capital, because it is also solved through diversification. If the total market for space oscillators is 120,000 a year, with about a 2-3% annual growth, making the best space oscillators…

Massdrop's original version is essentially what you are describing, they were a middleman that ran drops where you would pay for something upfront and once done they would collect the money and order it from the manufacturer before shipping it to you in a couple months. They used to sell a wide variety of things, but over time they moved more and more to their collaborations and Drop branded goods in the headphone and keyboard spaces and essentially became just another online retailer.
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