Again, deadlines being missed are almost always on the fault of the manufacturer.

Take GMK or example: their main revenue comes from commercial manufacturing, not this hobby. So their involvement in the custom keycap space is essentially that of a “side gig.” Their responsibility of upholding a groupbuy’s timeline is not a high priority of theirs. The ways in which they choose to neglect their obligation to their group buy customers isn’t a problem a runner has any control over.

As for why runners keep choosing to use problematic manufacturers is a whole other problem: the scarcity of manufacturers to begin with. There are only a handful, so the hobby at large is somewhat left to choose the lesser of two evils in a lot of cases.

Most importantly, running a group buy costs a huge investment of time and money, and it will be YEARS before you see any money made from it. While I don’t know the exact % of the profits that will go to the runner, I do think they should be compensated appropriately. Remember that most organizers are doing this on their own dime, and many don’t make it to production to begin with.