Again, thanks everyone for your feedback!
First, if you're suggesting that when someone chose to prioritize the treatment and health of a dying family member (while also shipping out whiny kids' keyboards and dealing with everything in-between all at the same time), that this is a "questionable past," without truly understanding the situation, probably coming from random PMs of people who also do not understand the situation, I cannot get behind that.
I'm not suggesting anything, I wasn't even aware of his problems. I assume you must know him more closely, unlike me. I definitely symphatize with him if that's the case.
What I meant was that aside from people contacting me directly there's evidence both on Geekhack and Reddit that he took some of the cash and some people never heard back from him. This, coupled with the fact that I myself was unable to get any response from him regarding closing our deal on BKE domes resulted in seeking alternatives.
I bet you'll admit it's hard get a full view of the situation when the information flow is obstructed. That being said I must prioritize people participating in my group buy and I take full responsibility for running it. I owe everyone not to make this GB a gamble based on whether someone will or will not respond, however dire their circumstances may be.
Full on pause here. You don't want to set a price based on R&D, cost of materials, cost of manufacturing, etc; you don't want to set the price arbitrarily, so you think letting the community decide arbitrarily is better? How does that make any sense whatsoever?
I must admit - I'm not a marketer or an economist. I'm an engineer. Vickrey auction simply appealed to me as a reliable method of gauging interest with founded mathematical basis.
Ultimately, I believe it's the people that see the real value of a product and say "ooh, that's expensive", "wow, that's cheap". Why not include a mechanism that enables people's voice to be heard and lets them share their valuations?
I'm going to be completely blunt and honest here -- you (with no history in the community, 20 posts on Geekhack, no working prototype, ambiguous supply chain) doing a Vickrey auction is 100% a cash grab. The irony of your above statement about questionable pasts is comical. The purpose of the Vickrey auction in mechanical keyboards has been perverted from a way for makers who put significant time and effort into their product, to make it something of extremely high quality (and their reputation speaks for itself) to someone who thinks they can just get a quick cash grab off the community.
I'm not sure what made you think I didn't put a significant amount of time and commitment to this project and also why the Conundrum is
not a product of high quality. Frankly, the very amount of time (2+ years) and commitment I devoted to this project should speak for itself.
Along the way I've made several prototypes and only once I had a working prototype I was satisfied with and was sure myself I can deliver did I start this IC. Speaking of the prototype, you can both evaluate how it behaves as well as how it looks (and it doesn't actually use the cheapest finishes there are, unlike many of the keyboard GBs you can see here).