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Omnias-42 t1_iy04wdt wrote

Reply to comment by WozNZ in When you spent 2,000$ over the last year and still haven't seen one GB arrive by CertainlyBright

You clearly don’t seem to understand how industrial manufacturing works, or that GBs exist in other markets (also know as crowdfunding) to meet niche market demand for custom products that wouldn’t get made otherwise. GMK and others like Signature Plastics without GBs would continue to make the standard black on white keycap sets they sell to commercial customers like on point of sale terminals.

There’s plenty of more generic options available for those not wanting to join a group buy, in addition to extras from previously run group buys. People don’t realize that before group buys, your options were essentially prebuilt keyboards with Cherry Blues, Reds, Blacks, or Browns (or equivalent from Gateron, Kaihl, etc), with beige, black on white, or sometimes white on black keycaps. Group buys is why there’s the customization that exists in the hobby, and what developed a new niche market.

Nobody has to join a GB, also, the clone manufacturers could easily offer to pay a royalty to designers - they choose not to because they don’t care about IP and make more profit not doing so. They don’t want to work with designers, they brag about stealing and have even stolen the trademarks for known entry level brands like Kaihl, Outemu, Vortexgear, Anne Pro.

At the end of the day, if you’re not the one being harmed it’s easy to be entitled about IP. But there’s no reason to pretend you’re better than others because you chose to not support the creators.

These aren’t digital goods either, there’s a significant fixed cost to setup and incremental to make more, it’s not like the near zero marginal cost for digital goods.

Also, clones exist for in stock keycap sets, simply cuz they can. Counterfeits exist for high end keyboards as well. The hobby isn’t just $50-200 keyboards, people spend thousands on some keyboards, and group buys are not for people new to the hobby.

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WozNZ t1_iy0fqgw wrote

I do remember when keyboards came as is. I used IBM Model M keyboards when they were new and used and purchased more than a few keyboards over the years :)

I guess this might be a better analogy for the point I was trying to make... The fashion industry.

Not sure if you are aware but fashion designs are unable to get IP protection. They tried back in the day but judges etc stamped on the idea saying a cuff or collar is a cuff or collar so because you shape it this way it is still that item. It is why brands have designs where the pattern includes their logo etc. They have protections on the logo so can go to court over the use.

What happens because this lack of protection is that as new "trends" come down the catwalk there are teams of people ready to start the "clone" process to then pump it onto the highstreet in days.

Not sure how well the protection works on keycaps but could very well see that if I say copied the colourway of a set, tweaked the colours ever so slightly so it preserved the "intent" there would be little recourse in law.

As you put above, there are target audiences at different price points. A GMK customer is less likely to buy clones and also a clone buyer is less likely to buy GMK because of the prices.

In the end of the day I think we are almost on the same page but arguing at different angles. A designer should get paid for their work but I can see how the situation happens if you put out a design that is in demand and then make it a year plus before actually available, the clone makers will flood in to fill the void.

Keycaps as you pointed out are just fashion really. We get sets we like the colours of.

I do understand lead times but if GMK are really running that far behind in the order books that would be an indication that they should expand no?

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Omnias-42 t1_iy0hfwd wrote

"tweaked the colours"

But that isn't what is happening, the issue with clones is they are using the exact colours, logo novelties, and the name branding, in some case they even advertise them as "GMK" keycaps. There is a big difference between an inspired design and ripping it off 1:1 including trademarks (and yes, some keycap sets do have registered trademarks for the names, but that doesn't stop the companies overseas from violating it).

There really isn't any excuse either to make clones of regularly in stock sets like DSA Astrolokeys, but it still happens. Sometimes, these companies even counterfeit small time artists directly, like the resin sculpture keycaps Alpha Keycaps and others make, and while artwork like that is protectable IP, enforcement is not really possible given the jurisdiction of where the counterfeiters are based out of.

GMK lead times, as I stated many times, are not isolated to GMK - they are across the board on both Western and Chinese manus, like Signature Plastic, Keyreative, JTK, ePBT, etc. Some like Keyreative have been notorious for various QC issues such as warp, blurred and misaligned legends, and dyesub issues.

You are also ignoring that these lead times exploded due to the abnormally high demand during covid in combination with global supply chain issues, hence why this has affected keycap set manufacturers across the board. At the time orders were being placed, some of these queues may not have been expected to be as long as they ended up. Additionally, GMK has been expanding production with new machines and hiring. https://oblotzky.industries/pages/visiting-gmk

It's not like custom keyboards $400+ have really short GB times either, but the manus and designs are so varied that perhaps it's less noticeable, or people in those GBs are more aware of what a GB entails.

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WozNZ t1_iy0kumj wrote

Yep, see where you are coming from on that. Has been an interesting convo.

Nice to be able to have a rational talk on internet without it devolving into shouting :)

Thanks

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Omnias-42 t1_iy0l5fs wrote

I think it's also important to remember that some of these people complaining about GB queue times joined when it was already well known the queues were long, and continued to join - the OP here was still joining GBs in March 2022, it's not like the queues will magically go from 2 years to 3 months - but it is fashionable to complain about GMK right now

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WozNZ t1_iy0mgsg wrote

Yep. The only "group buy" i ever took part in was for a portable digitizer that had a 3 month lead. It had some time blowout as covid lockdowns started a month before ship so not their fault and they did their best in bad situation. Tend to avoid them myself

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Omnias-42 t1_iy0n0cq wrote

Yeah, anyone joining a GB in 2022 or late 2021, especially when there are plenty of in stock alternatives available, should know what they are getting into, so it's hard to take the complaints very seriously - a very large portion of the GBs OP joined were these, a notable one being Dracula R2 - R1 of which was super notorious for taking forever before it even was submitted to the production queue because the designer went through like 5 rounds of colour matching

Some of the "newer" vendors responsible for the large queue volumes also are known to... not submit an order for months after GB sale ends, or to use bottom tier shipping to receive the keycaps and thus take months later to ship after customers in Europe and Asia already received them.

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