Despite what the cheapskates have to say, Bruce is completely right here.
Let's look at this rationally - mechanical keyboards are very much a niche market. Geekhack is
the keyboard resource for pretty much everywhere that isn't China, Japan or Korea. The odds are that if you are in the market for a Filco, you are either a member of this site, or you are going to encounter this site in your search for what you want (this is a tech product, and people who are in the market for high end tech products tend to be informed people who search around) or you find a blog, site or forum that links you here. So what Dirty Bint et al. are proposing effectively amounts to a discount for anyone who wants to buy the keyboard. Great.
I'm not buying the Scuba anecdote at all. So, a member of Scuba diving club gets a discount in a store selling Scuba equipment... As opposed to the people who aren't in Scuba clubs who buy stuff from Scuba shops? It reminds me of the "Recommended Retail Price" trick used by manufacturers and retailers - you put some outrageous price as your RRP, but the retailer sells it for less and boasts how much money the consumer is saving, but ultimately the saving is an illusion because you were never going to pay that much in the first place.
Maybe Bruce should raise the price of the Filco to £1,000, and then have a big sign on his site saying that if you join Geekhack, you will only have to pay [insert Keyboard Co's Filco price here] because what appears to be wanted here is not as much better value for money (which I think is perfectly satisfactory as it stands given the quality of Filco keyboards) as much as some token excuse to feel less begrudged to reach into the big bag of shekels under your bed.
I do not agree with the principle of the forum providing your company with a platform to promote their products where the forum members in practice get nothing in return.
Hi, you're new here. I can tell because you obviously don't remember the days when people coughed up close to $400 for a Topre Realforce. When a single red Topre cap cost
$20. When a Filco keyboard was a serious investment that required you to put your faith and about $200 or so in the hands of a Japanese middle man. When an email to PFU about buying the HHKB outside of Japan got a reply to the effect of "**** off, we don't sell outside Japan".
Then we got people like Bruce, Brian, Ms Keyboard etc etc who were able to get us our delicious hardware to us much cheaper, and without worrying about import duties and losing the stuff on the way from South East Asia... They come here, listen to us, and provide us what we want. They get guaranteed sales, we get cool stuff cheap - that's a mutually beneficial arrangement for you. Also, as we all know eachother here on a relatively informal basis, it makes it much easier to rectify problems or ask for special requests. Personally I think it's an enlightened way of doing business. Who cares if the discount wasn't the best thing around, it was a way of establish rapport with the customers in a way that didn't damage the profitability of their sales.
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