Omnias-42

Omnias-42 t1_j1zigfb wrote

Reply to comment by k4zie in Novelkeys - Poor Customer Service by k4zie

If the two parties are making conflicting claims, then proof of the actual discussion that took place along with the evidence that was presented to them is relevant.

Some vendors are generally known for having poor customer service and quality control, and others are generally reputable.

However, mistakes can happen from miscommunication and incomplete information. Which is why it is also important to determine if something was an isolated incident or a pattern of behaviour, and whether steps were taken to remedy the situation.

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Omnias-42 t1_j1zgfcx wrote

Reply to comment by k4zie in Novelkeys - Poor Customer Service by k4zie

Do you have receipts to rebut their statements?

When you made your claims, the only party that has provided concrete evidence was the vendor. If you’re going to make serious accusations, you need to be able to back that up.

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Omnias-42 t1_j1z7xix wrote

Reply to Novelkeys - Poor Customer Service by k4zie

It appears the issue has been sorted. For the full vendor response, see below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/zx1oac/novelkeys_poor_customer_service/j1yvzv1/

As others in the thread recommended, you should still inspect your PCB before assembly and test the functionality before soldering or installing switches in case you get a defect, however, hotswap sockets, which convenient, can be damaged if the switch pins are not straight.

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Omnias-42 t1_iy0n0cq wrote

Reply to comment by WozNZ in When you spent 2,000$ over the last year and still haven't seen one GB arrive by CertainlyBright

Yeah, anyone joining a GB in 2022 or late 2021, especially when there are plenty of in stock alternatives available, should know what they are getting into, so it's hard to take the complaints very seriously - a very large portion of the GBs OP joined were these, a notable one being Dracula R2 - R1 of which was super notorious for taking forever before it even was submitted to the production queue because the designer went through like 5 rounds of colour matching

Some of the "newer" vendors responsible for the large queue volumes also are known to... not submit an order for months after GB sale ends, or to use bottom tier shipping to receive the keycaps and thus take months later to ship after customers in Europe and Asia already received them.

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Omnias-42 t1_iy0l5fs wrote

Reply to comment by WozNZ in When you spent 2,000$ over the last year and still haven't seen one GB arrive by CertainlyBright

I think it's also important to remember that some of these people complaining about GB queue times joined when it was already well known the queues were long, and continued to join - the OP here was still joining GBs in March 2022, it's not like the queues will magically go from 2 years to 3 months - but it is fashionable to complain about GMK right now

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Omnias-42 t1_iy0hfwd wrote

Reply to comment by WozNZ in When you spent 2,000$ over the last year and still haven't seen one GB arrive by CertainlyBright

"tweaked the colours"

But that isn't what is happening, the issue with clones is they are using the exact colours, logo novelties, and the name branding, in some case they even advertise them as "GMK" keycaps. There is a big difference between an inspired design and ripping it off 1:1 including trademarks (and yes, some keycap sets do have registered trademarks for the names, but that doesn't stop the companies overseas from violating it).

There really isn't any excuse either to make clones of regularly in stock sets like DSA Astrolokeys, but it still happens. Sometimes, these companies even counterfeit small time artists directly, like the resin sculpture keycaps Alpha Keycaps and others make, and while artwork like that is protectable IP, enforcement is not really possible given the jurisdiction of where the counterfeiters are based out of.

GMK lead times, as I stated many times, are not isolated to GMK - they are across the board on both Western and Chinese manus, like Signature Plastic, Keyreative, JTK, ePBT, etc. Some like Keyreative have been notorious for various QC issues such as warp, blurred and misaligned legends, and dyesub issues.

You are also ignoring that these lead times exploded due to the abnormally high demand during covid in combination with global supply chain issues, hence why this has affected keycap set manufacturers across the board. At the time orders were being placed, some of these queues may not have been expected to be as long as they ended up. Additionally, GMK has been expanding production with new machines and hiring. https://oblotzky.industries/pages/visiting-gmk

It's not like custom keyboards $400+ have really short GB times either, but the manus and designs are so varied that perhaps it's less noticeable, or people in those GBs are more aware of what a GB entails.

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Omnias-42 t1_iy04wdt wrote

Reply to comment by WozNZ in When you spent 2,000$ over the last year and still haven't seen one GB arrive by CertainlyBright

You clearly don’t seem to understand how industrial manufacturing works, or that GBs exist in other markets (also know as crowdfunding) to meet niche market demand for custom products that wouldn’t get made otherwise. GMK and others like Signature Plastics without GBs would continue to make the standard black on white keycap sets they sell to commercial customers like on point of sale terminals.

There’s plenty of more generic options available for those not wanting to join a group buy, in addition to extras from previously run group buys. People don’t realize that before group buys, your options were essentially prebuilt keyboards with Cherry Blues, Reds, Blacks, or Browns (or equivalent from Gateron, Kaihl, etc), with beige, black on white, or sometimes white on black keycaps. Group buys is why there’s the customization that exists in the hobby, and what developed a new niche market.

Nobody has to join a GB, also, the clone manufacturers could easily offer to pay a royalty to designers - they choose not to because they don’t care about IP and make more profit not doing so. They don’t want to work with designers, they brag about stealing and have even stolen the trademarks for known entry level brands like Kaihl, Outemu, Vortexgear, Anne Pro.

At the end of the day, if you’re not the one being harmed it’s easy to be entitled about IP. But there’s no reason to pretend you’re better than others because you chose to not support the creators.

These aren’t digital goods either, there’s a significant fixed cost to setup and incremental to make more, it’s not like the near zero marginal cost for digital goods.

Also, clones exist for in stock keycap sets, simply cuz they can. Counterfeits exist for high end keyboards as well. The hobby isn’t just $50-200 keyboards, people spend thousands on some keyboards, and group buys are not for people new to the hobby.

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Omnias-42 t1_ixzvi04 wrote

Reply to comment by WozNZ in When you spent 2,000$ over the last year and still haven't seen one GB arrive by CertainlyBright

The other custom manufacturers have just as long wait times and many times worse QC. Vendors that keep on loading new GBs without any prior fulfillment experience is why every manu gets long overloaded queues - there’s probably two rather new vendors responsible for half to queue at each manu

Clones are harming the community members that make original art, there’s no reason people can’t make their own original in stock keycap set designs, clones are just taking the lazy way or by stealing from those that proved there was market demand.

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Omnias-42 t1_ixmpwwy wrote

Reply to Lyra with NicePBT Sweater Weather by xulos

Note this keyboard (Lyra) isn’t available anymore, while some local people got the board, the person fulfilling, Santigo, scammed the members of this group buy and the subsequent one Monoflex

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