The *Ping* Award

[Daniel Beardsmore]

It would be useful if we could take everyone from these brain-dead threads, grind them up, and harvest the energy from them and use it for something useful … How can there be nothing here for anyone to do except get mired in endless arguments?

[davkol]

[TuxKey]

The Massdrop / Input club was certainly a fiasco.
after two years of waiting to receive my K-type i was pretty disappointed with it.
Cheap usb-a to type-c cable white plastic (even the one i got from AliExpress looked better).
Software glitches, bad stabelizers, cheap plastic keycap puller.
And eventually "the straw that broke the camel's back" coil wine that reared it's ugly neck after 10 days of use..
So i returned it have to admit i'm the first to be critical about Massdrop but return service was good. Even for me here in Europe..

i did like the switch so that's good .. but i don't like that this is the second input-club keyboard that suffers from pinging..
hmmm

Time to improve your game input club.

[davkol]

That's the thing though, didn't Input Club design the thing and Massderp "manage" manufacturing and distribution?

The way you address your post sounds like if I blamed dox and litster for the poor quality of my original ErgoDox, although they didn't have a say in what PCB revision MD picked or how they handled orders/QC for cases, cables etc.

That's one issue with Massgreed (because they're in this for profit—which may involve sales, or providing data to their business partners, i.e., the drop participants aren't the customers, but rather the product—and not for community satisfaction). The other one is how they often treat the community (and no, I don't mean the "community" that is their drop-participant base, I mean the actual community on forums).

(And to expand on this, I do agree that the lack of an EU proxy shouldn't be a main criticism of Massderp, because it misses the point.)

[scottc]

I feel like people complaining about the EU proxy are really missing the point here: any "proxy" would need to pay tax to import the goods anyway! That would mean that small items that might pass through the minimum customs threshold would cost more than before, and you'd end up paying the USA price + VAT for everything else. You could only really save the handling fee from customs. Then it'd need to be double shipped. I feel like it's not going to achieve much.

As well as this, their support for returns and lost packages seems fine and is better than many hobby shops.

However, you absolutely should criticise them for their logistics fuck ups, complete inability to fill customs forms, general failure at shipping, shady fake RRPs, etc.

Meh.

[Slom]

I feel like people complaining about the EU proxy are really missing the point here: any "proxy" would need to pay tax to import the goods anyway!

Isn't GMK located in Germany?

[scottc]

I feel like people complaining about the EU proxy are really missing the point here: any "proxy" would need to pay tax to import the goods anyway!

Isn't GMK located in Germany?

GMK has to charge VAT to EU buyers. It doesn't to international buyers.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/va ... dex_en.htm

[davkol]

Wouldn't they have to comply with European legislature in general too? If they did, it'd clear up quite a few other complaints, such as those about their ToS, data handling or RMA/warranty consistency.

[Slom]

I feel like people complaining about the EU proxy are really missing the point here: any "proxy" would need to pay tax to import the goods anyway!

Isn't GMK located in Germany?

GMK has to charge VAT to EU buyers. It doesn't to international buyers.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/va ... dex_en.htm

Interesting! So it is VAT vs 2x int. shipping for small items? I would still expect the shipping to be more expensive.

[scottc]

For things cheap enough to pass by customs (so less than 40-50 euro or so?), I suppose so. But what's less than 50 euro in this hobby?! Certainly not GMK sets.


You can't directly compare shipping rates, either, since Massdrop probably has bulk shipping rates. I know that the last time I bought something from them (a few kits of DSA Granite), it only cost about $15-20 to ship from the USA. That's about the same as a DHL <2kg box from Germany to the rest of the EU.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to defend them. Their ToS is dodgy and probably unenforceable, they keep screwing up logistics, and can't ship internationally to save their lives. But I'd rather that the more serious issues were heard.

A lot of noise is made about Massdrop (wah why won't they forge customs forms for me?!? It's their fault that my country has import tax), but unfortunately most of it isn't well-researched and there's so much of it that it drowns out the legitimate complaints, which are much more serious.

[gateron]

That's the thing though, didn't Input Club design the thing and Massderp "manage" manufacturing and distribution?

The way you address your post sounds like if I blamed dox and litster for the poor quality of my original ErgoDox, although they didn't have a say in what PCB revision MD picked or how they handled orders/QC for cases, cables etc.

That's one issue with Massgreed (because they're in this for profit—which may involve sales, or providing data to their business partners, i.e., the drop participants aren't the customers, but rather the product—and not for community satisfaction). The other one is how they often treat the community (and no, I don't mean the "community" that is their drop-participant base, I mean the actual community on forums).

(And to expand on this, I do agree that the lack of an EU proxy shouldn't be a main criticism of Massderp, because it misses the point.)

Lol, massgreed? Your behaviour is childish making up stupid names for companies. Buhu, they're making money of this.
They also provide SA, GMK set much cheaper than anyone else.

I dont see you whining about other companies.

If md ever do wrong, they fix their mistakes and can be trusted. That can absolutely NOT be said for all other vendors.

What other companies do you dislike because they're here to *drumroll* make money? Cherry? GMK? Signature Plastic?

[hansichen]

Wouldn't they have to comply with European legislature in general too? If they did, it'd clear up quite a few other complaints, such as those about their ToS, data handling or RMA/warranty consistency.

That's the point where it starts to get really interesting. Especially the 14 days return window should apply for all of their sales which would lead to another price increase. Furthermore you need more stuff, more lawyers, other shipping contracts etc, that's not really worth it. Shipping for most items from the US is less than 17$, EU shipping won't make that much of a difference. Also bulk shipping from gmk to the US doesn't make the products that much more expensive, and most stuff which they sell is not from the EU

[davkol]

Wouldn't they have to comply with European legislature in general too? If they did, it'd clear up quite a few other complaints, such as those about their ToS, data handling or RMA/warranty consistency.

That's the point where it starts to get really interesting. Especially the 14 days return window should apply for all of their sales which would lead to another price increase. Furthermore you need more stuff, more lawyers, other shipping contracts etc, that's not really worth it. Shipping for most items from the US is less than 17$, EU shipping won't make that much of a difference. Also bulk shipping from gmk to the US doesn't make the products that much more expensive, and most stuff which they sell is not from the EU

You're assuming that everybody's willing to shop at MD and pricing is the main concern.

Well, nope. I wish they'd fix their ToS, comply with GDPR in the future… and I wish shopping there was less of a gamble.

Lol, massgreed? Your behaviour is childish making up stupid names for companies. Buhu, they're making money of this.
They also provide SA, GMK set much cheaper than anyone else.

I dont see you whining about other companies.

If md ever do wrong, they fix their mistakes and can be trusted. That can absolutely NOT be said for all other vendors.

What other companies do you dislike because they're here to *drumroll* make money? Cherry? GMK? Signature Plastic?

You're still completely missing the point.

Community members were running group buys before MD even existed (Geekhack is ~5 years older than MD), some still do. Not as for-profit vendors, as community members. Community. Have I mentioned the community?

The main benefit of MD is that the GB organizer can't just disappear, as it's happened a few times. They may still fuck up though (again, looking at their history of quality or support problems would be beating a dead horse; there are almost five years worth of that), and there are other draws too: some corporate entity with shady ToS is handling user's data (that's a huge industry these days, if you haven't noticed) and as a middleman, there's another relationship… between them and the vendors or community members that provide design/know-how.

FYI MD won the *Ping* award back in 2015 with this

In order to collect and sell your data, please log in to view more about Massdrop's scruffy KC60 and Infinity Ergodox drops, the bad packaging of GKM trays, and the failure to even acknowledge the assistance or even existence of Deskthority in Massdrop's latest marketing for Matteo's Topre set (whose design thread took place right here on DT).

[JBert]

A lot of noise is made about Massdrop (wah why won't they forge customs forms for me?!? It's their fault that my country has import tax)

It would be a start if they got the custom forms 100% correct.

I still haven't forgiven them for declaring my Granite kits as 6 * $24 items (or whatever the numbers were) because their invoicing system doesn't store "ISO kit" = $4 but ($24 - $20) and then forgets to apply that discount when printing forms.

[JBert]

Community members were running group buys before MD even existed (Geekhack is ~5 years older than MD), some still do. Not as for-profit vendors, as community members. Community. Have I mentioned the community?

The main benefit of MD is that the GB organizer can't just disappear, as it's happened a few times. They may still fuck up though (again, looking at their history of quality or support problems would be beating a dead horse; there are almost five years worth of that), and there are other draws too: some corporate entity with shady ToS is handling user's data (that's a huge industry these days, if you haven't noticed) and as a middleman, there's another relationship… between them and the vendors or community members that provide design/know-how.

This is one of the big downsides to MassDrop: while you might get slightly better prices and someone to point fingers to (if the ToS don't forbid you from that), the community can no longer choose what it does as keyboard / keycap vendors are so much more likely to only sell to the middleman so they don't get bothered by the "amateur" GB organiser.

[scottc]

A lot of noise is made about Massdrop (wah why won't they forge customs forms for me?!? It's their fault that my country has import tax)

It would be a start if they got the custom forms 100% correct.

I still haven't forgiven them for declaring my Granite kits as 6 * $24 items (or whatever the numbers were) because their invoicing system doesn't store "ISO kit" = $4 but ($24 - $20) and then forgets to apply that discount when printing forms.

Yes, agreed, they did the exact same to me. I ended up paying far, far too much in customs fees. I complained loudly enough that they refunded me them, at least. That is ridiculous.

But some people seem to think that Massdrop are obliged to forge a customs declaration for them, which is just silly.

[snot]

Saw this on the Canadian Keyboard Discord, the amount of Zeal circlejerk is becoming unbearable.