Thomas Baart (of splitkb.com fame) dives into group buys:
Group buys are still used as a business model, but its popularity is dwindling quickly. Why is that, and is that justified?
Interesting read!
My guess would be because it takes years for the actual product to get sent out. No one’s got patience for that.
I’m just disheartened on the number of otherwise beautiful keycap sets that fail to use symbology for special keys. I’m talking shift, tab, enter, backspace, caps lock, num lock, home, end, page up, page down…
I’ve even seen arrow keys that use Up, Down, Left, Right and it makes me sad.
That’s just wrong.
I got a “gamer” mechanical, it is decent but nothing special. Black Friday 140 bucks tho
I still don’t get why people rave about them. I do like the “typey” feel but it is just a feel. Cheapo key boards do the job.
Can someone explain to me how this is not a fad?
It’s a tool first and foremost. If you’re professionally using a power drill all day everyday, you’ll want a very good one that’s powerful, reliable and comfortable to use. If you professionally type all day everyday, you’re absolutely entitled to use a keyboard that perfectly fits your preferences in terms of feel, comfort, feedback and layout.
There is a certain amount of wank factor in mechanical keyboards. But if you are a high volume typist or heavy keyboard user, a keyboard that suits your typing style (with regards to springiness and feedback) absolutely helps.
If you primarily just use the WASD keys a few hours a week with a bit of half assed sorta touch typing in between then they’re not really needed.
If it’s something that people are using a lot then anything that improves the experience can be seen as increasingly important/valuable.
From a practicality perspective, they offer precision, feedback and speed advantages over membrane/rubber dome types which can be valuable in different use cases.
I haven’t used gamer brand mechanical keyboards in a while, but my previous impression was that they were overpriced and generally at the lower quality/poorer experience end of the spectrum. I think there are likely far better options out there at all price points.
I joined one group buy for keycaps. Took 3 years! Switched to Topre keyboards. Now I either need to buy new sliders or sell the keycaps.
Group buys are absolutely not for me.
I’m looking for unix keycaps, I’ll end up designing them myself and having them printed.
At about 150 dollars at most, it’s probably the simplest way to get what I want. Must simpler than endlessly waiting for a group to come up with what I want.
I’ve done a couple of boards worth of lasering dye-sublimation markers into PBT keycaps. It comes out pretty nice, and blanks from Amazon or AliExpress are cheap.
