Does anyone actually make these 'clones' other than kailh?
It will be more manufacturers interested in the future. Again, this is the important part, that now quality, and reliabilty will have more variations. Also, as the design is robust, if the manufacturer uses proper materials, and processes, the final result should be good, and prices are gonna get down. Let's see how this affect the keyboard pricing.
I would say most companies will follow razer in that they will use cheaper switches and still charge the same amount.
I would agree with this mostly. There's no incentive to produce a better switch than what Cherry has for now. There's incentive to produce cheaper switches than Cherry and sell to companies that are good at marketing, like Razer, TTesports, Steelseries, etc.
Brands that already have their lineups set in Cherry MX like Filco, KBT, DAS, etc would maintain their premium ideals, while the marketing brands will downgrade to cheaper switches and sell their top end boards based on name brand and additional features (backlit, macro keys, special digital screens, fancy designs/shapes, etc).
The only benefit will come where the marketing brands use the cheaper switches and produce bare basic keyboards at lower prices. Similar to the Monoprice MX blue board, which sells for something like $50 bucks. With cheap clones, it could drop to $35-40 instead.
