I'm pretty much still a newb to this hobby. but I was all excited reading the OP until I reached "cannon keys" part.
So getting one will be similar to the satisfaction75 group buy format?
Most probably yes.
Was planning on picking this up but am hesitant because it's on CK. Beautiful board but I will be passing.
As much as I respect your vote-with-your-wallet decision as a consumer, I will take some time to say this type of comment leaves a weird bitter taste in my mouth.
The whole S75 fiasco was about the checkout system, the website, and not some horrible thing CK did. They didn't scam anyone, they didn't steal money. They designed a flawed checkout system, and that was bad. Yeah, CK made a mistake with that checkout system, they didn't test it properly and it exploded when the stampede of the community tried to get an S75. Yet CK tried to mitigate the error by posponing the whole thing and stretching the number of units to 1200. Was it the best solution? I can't say, I am not in the CK team and I don't know the circumstances behind the whole thing. But let's rationalize for a bit. Had Upas delayed the S75 GB for a week, there would be drama because some people woke up in the middle of the night to get into the GB and they felt disrespected. Had he not postponed it there would be drama because he did nothing. At this point it's a game he can't win and he was forced to make a judgement call.
At the end of the day there isn't enough keyboards for everyone and we are delivering systems to select who gets one and who doesn't. Most of people won't get the keyboard and will be frustrated. For instance, I've been in this community since 2013 and I have entered literally every Keycult raffle there was, and I have never gotten a single wrist wrest to speak for it, and still you don't see me screaming around Keycult are bad. If you are going to rebate that by saying that their checkout system is better than CK's, I'll let you know that Keycult's system is new and they had the very same problems CK is having right now. The way money works to filter out buyers is regulating price; if you have more demand than you can take, you raise prices and the amount of people buying dwindles. That's economy 101. And even then the designers in this community choose to deliver raffle/FCFS or whatever systems to keep the keyboards at a reasonable price instead of raising prices. We can discuss which system is more fair, or easier on the consumer. But at the end of the day, these systems are a way of selecting buyers instead of raising prices. Don't you think Keycult would still sell their keyboards if they doubled the prices? Or CK for that matter? I would wager that S75R2 would still sell out at 1k USD a unit.
One thing I can say though is that I know from first hand experience that the average member of this community does not know how to voice opinions and often mistake criticism for toxicity. This seemingly common practice creates a poopoo environment that legitimates very sick people to harass and threat designers and vendors. I also can say that the amounts of stress that this community can get you into, specially when hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake, is enough to keep you away from months and never want back. Why do you think I am not offering commissions anymore? Because these days I get messages like this on a daily basis:
Can you imagine the tone of the messages Upas and Ana might have received? Regarding Sagittarius, I have seend comments on several Discord channels of people saying that Tom was a character I invented to garner the community's empathy towards this project. Can you imagine how that made me feel?
Now let us compare the S75 issues with our community's history. We had stories in this community of designers literally getting everyone's money and leading away with nothing to say about it, we had designers stealing ideas from other ones and trying to run a GB on their stolen idea before the original, we had designers deliver a product worlds-away different that what was advertised, we had designers deliver sub-par products that were hyped the crap out of. And I have
never seen them get this amount of toxicity. Most of them are still out there, some run stores/companies. The tone of the reddit threads, the Discord messages or the GH comments like these make it look like CK murdered a child in cold blood. The S75 GB was swarming with people because of a single reason: CK designs awesome boards, delivers them with a very rigid quality control and has never failed at that.
I am saying all of this because enough is enough. I have kept my opinions to myself, but I want to take this to publicly state that the overall reaction to the whole S75 thing although not unfounded has been blown way out of proportion in my opinion and the way this has spilled onto Sagittarius is asinine. I have got tens of people in my Discord DMs saying I should take Sagittarius to other vendors, because CK is bad, and that they won't buy it if it is run through CK. I have vendors messaging me about throwing Upas under the bus and that they'd give me money for running this keyboard with them. This is the wretched hive of scum and villany this hobby has turned into. The fact that people think I value money over the faith I have in Upas makes me vomit. For these reasons, and at the risk of sounding arrogant, I say: the tone of your comment, "I think this keyboard is nice but I am going to emotionally blackmail you with my money for small reasons" has zero effect on me or my decisions as I get messages hundred times worse than yours daily.
I want also to publicly state that Upas is the best person I have ever worked with in this community, and were it not for him and the exposure he got me and the commissions I got from that exposure, I wouldn't be able to finish my MsC since I lost my job. I also would not have been able to help my family's friend to bury him with dignity. He was patient and careful when I was at my worst and it is due to him, and him only, that I still design keyboards. If you don't believe his word, believe mine: CK are good intentioned people that love this hobby and want to deliver good keyboards. They are not scammers, they are not liars.
So getting back to your comment, and apologizing for venting on you, I want to say this is not personal as I don't even know you. But if you think this keyboard is worth your money, buy it. If it's not your thing, don't. Either way stop the attitude. It does not help anyone, it is not making more keyboards, and it only empowers truly bad people like the wannabe-my-brother-inlaw in the image to harass and disorient designers. If anything it is riving away good designers that could be designing more awesome stuff, and yet they see all the crap and think twice. It also stops our designers from interacting with the community. Some people complain that the designers don't linger around social media much. Why would they?
