I am posting a rebuttal to my comment which was censored a while back where I said "to be honest mito creeps me the fuck out" - I was attacked, people went into my facebook. I reacted incorrectly and then said "well if you're going to censor me it makes me think mito is a pedo," which just isn't the right thing to say, it was an emotional reaction and I really was trying to speak out against the process in general. I deserved my lashings and in hindsight should have spent more time to communicate my thoughts; which are below.
When I said mito creeps me out what I meant was, we are selling hype and in the end the product isn't any more unique than any other organization can produce. I was turned off by this color scheme, but more than that, the reaction of the community to an absolute puke of a system. We are creating a market of scarcity and the people who generate the hype are profiting hand over fist.
Do we have any understanding of the suppliers? Who is doing the machining for the housing? Where are the PCBs being assembled? Are you using fair trade labor and are you supporting American or European labor? Are you jobbing this out to a cheap Chinese board house and a cheap Chinese aluminum supplier?
What we get are a few pictures and some cool attitudes, we get a personality; isn't that what is most important? The person behind the design! Rather, there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle and slapping some renders and pretty colors behind a build doesn't mean you deserve the rewards associated because you are taking advantage of the global supply chain. I imagine MiTo is from affluence, or at least he attempts to project that in his persona.
What is the return on investment on an artisan keeb with pretty colors? Currently there is no market value... I have seen rare builds go for 1k on mechmarket... these keyboards have maybe 30 dollars worth of hardware cost.
We don't see massdrop itemize the cost of their assemblies, nor do we see the consumers ever demand anything regarding a supplier report. Only on small artisan made knives will you get a documentation of the supplier, as the people purchasing blades care about where their steel comes from.
Again, if you have the attention span to read. This hype is fucking us, this color scheme is trash and they are producing these things using the cheapest suppliers possible while charging you the highest possible price. The model itself takes the principals of lean manufacturing and applies it to the consumer side. It is a stock management nerds heaven, an accountants wet dream.
I understand, at least you get a unique item... but anybody can assemble pretty keyboards. Where is the benefit to the customer? Where is the betterment of the community? Massdrop is supposed to bring transparency to the vendor and a unique low price, rather the customer gets a hype machine, while massdrop reaps all the benefits of removing any customer service costs or costs associated with carrying inventory.
Every sale massdrop runs on the site is literally an inventory turn, you see things that are common items on massdrop? Those are the items massdrop makes the greatest margin on, the rest of the unique items are the fluff that generate traffic to drive high margin items, like massdrop knives and massdrop headphones.
In the old days we would get unique product (before walmart killed creativity) and now we have massdrop, where we trade customer service and the right to purchase product at will for the chance to get a unique drop direct from the manufacturer.
After spending time on the site though, I do not see the cost savings. Somebody is scraping profit from this gig and I assume massdrop is not running this for free. Consequently, we get censored when we speak out, we get ignored when we ask for help, and when a good product is actually in demand, it is used against us to sell us more shit in between the hype.
If massdrop actually carried the stock that was in demand or ran regular on popular items with sale prices they would satisfy all their customers and the model would collapse. It is an amazing business model that is the ultimate manifestation of the capitalist spirit... but for fucks sake, when I say "mito creeps me out" don't get your panties in a bunch.
TL;DR Massdrop is making retail margins but not carrying any inventory or providing any customer service. Mito, they are selling your name for hype. This is probably going to get censored and the friendly turd from customer service will politely tell me to eat some dicks.
When I said mito creeps me out what I meant was, we are selling hype and in the end the product isn't any more unique than any other organization can produce. I was turned off by this color scheme, but more than that, the reaction of the community to an absolute puke of a system. We are creating a market of scarcity and the people who generate the hype are profiting hand over fist.
Do we have any understanding of the suppliers? Who is doing the machining for the housing? Where are the PCBs being assembled? Are you using fair trade labor and are you supporting American or European labor? Are you jobbing this out to a cheap Chinese board house and a cheap Chinese aluminum supplier?
What we get are a few pictures and some cool attitudes, we get a personality; isn't that what is most important? The person behind the design! Rather, there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle and slapping some renders and pretty colors behind a build doesn't mean you deserve the rewards associated because you are taking advantage of the global supply chain. I imagine MiTo is from affluence, or at least he attempts to project that in his persona.
What is the return on investment on an artisan keeb with pretty colors? Currently there is no market value... I have seen rare builds go for 1k on mechmarket... these keyboards have maybe 30 dollars worth of hardware cost.
We don't see massdrop itemize the cost of their assemblies, nor do we see the consumers ever demand anything regarding a supplier report. Only on small artisan made knives will you get a documentation of the supplier, as the people purchasing blades care about where their steel comes from.
Again, if you have the attention span to read. This hype is fucking us, this color scheme is trash and they are producing these things using the cheapest suppliers possible while charging you the highest possible price. The model itself takes the principals of lean manufacturing and applies it to the consumer side. It is a stock management nerds heaven, an accountants wet dream.
I understand, at least you get a unique item... but anybody can assemble pretty keyboards. Where is the benefit to the customer? Where is the betterment of the community? Massdrop is supposed to bring transparency to the vendor and a unique low price, rather the customer gets a hype machine, while massdrop reaps all the benefits of removing any customer service costs or costs associated with carrying inventory.
Every sale massdrop runs on the site is literally an inventory turn, you see things that are common items on massdrop? Those are the items massdrop makes the greatest margin on, the rest of the unique items are the fluff that generate traffic to drive high margin items, like massdrop knives and massdrop headphones.
In the old days we would get unique product (before walmart killed creativity) and now we have massdrop, where we trade customer service and the right to purchase product at will for the chance to get a unique drop direct from the manufacturer.
After spending time on the site though, I do not see the cost savings. Somebody is scraping profit from this gig and I assume massdrop is not running this for free. Consequently, we get censored when we speak out, we get ignored when we ask for help, and when a good product is actually in demand, it is used against us to sell us more shit in between the hype.
If massdrop actually carried the stock that was in demand or ran regular on popular items with sale prices they would satisfy all their customers and the model would collapse. It is an amazing business model that is the ultimate manifestation of the capitalist spirit... but for fucks sake, when I say "mito creeps me out" don't get your panties in a bunch.
TL;DR Massdrop is making retail margins but not carrying any inventory or providing any customer service. Mito, they are selling your name for hype. This is probably going to get censored and the friendly turd from customer service will politely tell me to eat some dicks.