Rad as hell, excited to see where this goes!

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.

u/hiszpanskiinkwizytor you should take what Cobertt is saying to heart here.

It is absolutely unrealistic to ask a runner to have the capital to fund an entire manufacturing operation by themselves. If that were the case, then this hobby wouldn’t exist to begin with. Designers that are doing their best to keep everyone appraised of the group buy’s timeline aren’t your enemy here.

We should continue to hold companies like GMK, Keyreative, etc. accountable for poor communication and missing deadlines. But acting as though that is the fault of a good-faith runner is misplacing your frustration.

Best thing you can do is not join GB’s that use manufacturers/vendors with a problematic track record, and support those that respect their customers.