Mechanical Keyboard Sound Isn't That Simple
Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried... Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
Mar 27, 2024
No way I'm paying 200$ to cover a <50-keys keyboard.
Just compare with the SA Carbon drop : I paid only 36$ more to cover my Planck with only the keys I needed. With SA Godspeed, it was even less : 21$
Since GMK has a 100 MOQ, that requires us to bundle stuff in bigger kits and discard doing separate Ergodox and Planck/Preonic kits. This also comes with some perks, just check the $10 price drop when reaching 150 units on this kit. Or the almost $20 price drop for the novelties when reaching 1000 units...
By the way, 85 orders in 4 days for GMK is huge. To put that in perspective it took a successful set as Yuri about 8 days to reach that same number, with a total of 124 kits sold.
Base kit is likely ~1000 now. Ergodox kit is likely ~95.
Two weeks still to run and nobody mentioned the Asia proxy, which will add a big boost on the final day. The kit will tip for sure and may yet reach the first price break.
You could read back through the Yuri discussion and you might find precise numbers, and there are some graphics like the one in this post by @everyman : https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-t0mb3ry-gmk-yuri-custom-keycap-set/talk/1702392
Someone mentioned that Taobao stock was showing 76/100 base kits sold at the approximate time of the graphic, so maybe very roughly 10% would be a sane estimate to use, but allow a big margin or error on that.
The fact that with every GMK set, you are forced to buy a billion keys you won't ever use, is not a reason to be happy that it is again the case with that drop.
With every GMK drop, we can read "Great value ! The base kit features a full set and every key you'd ever need for any standard keyboard !" Yeah, that's another way to say that you're buying a bunch of useless stuff that will stay in a drawer forever. And that you're fucked if you don't have a standard keyboard, since alphas won't ever be sold separately.
If you only need alphas in it, this is getting ridiculous.
I'm happy for you that this set is successful, it's really gorgeous and I was waiting for it to drop to buy it. I'm not angry, just really disappointed, I won't be able to get this set although I'm still a huge fan of it, just because of that shitty grouping/pricing policy.
(maybe it's GMK's fault, not yours, but that still does not make it right)
The Base Kit technically already covers the Planck layout fine with a few mismatched legends. And the Spacebar Kit has a 2u spacebar. All we really need is a just few more caps to make it pretty. I don't see why Planck/Preonic users have to buy an entire Ergo/Planck Kit just to use a few 1u caps when these options *could* have been bundled with Base/Novelties/Spacebar.
I also think comparing the current 85 Ergo/Planck orders in 4 days to Yuri isn't fair because of the mass appeal Nautilus' colorway seems to have. Every kit is doing really well. You can't just say Ergo/Planck is doing well and assume it's just because of the legends. Saying that the 250 drop price is similar to past GMK Ergo/Planck kits is also misleading because those past kits do provide a lot more keycaps and are inherently more versatile.
I can understand you wanting to push for a kit with legends, and I think it's great that future GMK sets would be able to make use of these new moulds, but I personally think there could have been a better approach for spreading out cost rather than forcing it all on a single kit. It might not be your intention, but it really feels like Planck/Preonic users are being singled out here.