I'm somewhat annoyed by some people's narrow definitions of "the hobby".
I'm on this board because I type a lot every day and want good tools and I like to create and modify things. That is what Geekhack was about when I registered a long time ago. But apparently there are people who are here only because they have been bit by a collecting bug. I avoid the shiny colourful stuff: it is not for me.
What I do like is that the widening of keyboards as a hobby has nurtured keyboard evolution, so that there not exist even affordable ready-to-buy keyboards with interesting useful features and technical solutions. Not many years ago, you couldn't buy a gasket-mounted keyboard with hot-swapping sockets, without having to solder it yourself, but now you can.
I mean I think the collection aspect will always be an integral part of being in the hobby, but I agree that it is narrow to think of the hobby like that. It's bound to happen especially with custom keyboards being such a core part now (though a better name might be custom
isable keyboards...)
I don't get annoyed but more confused when people just don't put that much effort into assembling the boards. I always tell people to actually take the time to mod switches properly (breaking them in, spring swapping them, lubing them), lube stabs properly and to solder, not only cause of the benefits but because it feels a lot more rewarding and engaging with the diy aspects of keyboards to solder rather than put them in and it's done (Not that hotswap is bad btw, it's amazing for experimentation and you probably should have one hotswap keyboard just for experimenting with new stuff). Plus you get to learn a pretty useful skill.
I get why some people don't, some people just want a keyboard but if you have several mx keyboards without putting that effort I think it's pretty antithetical to some of the core aspects of the "hobby" which are creating the best keyboard for you, while experimenting and customizing everything along the way. I don't even blame people for falling into that mindset of aesthetic and sound over function and feel, it's far more appealing to a person getting into everything and they are the only aspects that can transfer into an audio and visual medium like youtube or tiktok, which is how I feel most people are finding out about the hobby today.
My first reply in this thread is pretty representative of how I feel about what you said I feel, that the hobby is pretty fleeting if you exclusively engage with the materialistic aspects and the things that will engage you in the long term are the more diy aspects.
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