On Tue, Mar 14, 2023 at 09:16:02PM +0000, Jonathan Chapman via cctalk wrote: [...] > It's nice to support the designers in some capacity, but buying knockoffs > fuels the ecosystem that creates knockoffs. With our stuff, it's never > been that a single knockoff operation eats our lunch, it's that there's a > zillion of them that run maybe 100 boards and disappear. Death by a > thousand cuts. They charge $1-5 less while running the cheapest possible > boards, stuffing with salvaged chips, etc. Meanwhile, we're having to pay > for runs of boards with hard gold plating and buy genuine parts from > Mouser.
I'm not currently in the market for an XT-IDE--probably just as well as they seem to be out of stock---but this sort of product appeals to me and I'd buy one if I had an 8-bit ISA machine. $60 for the real deal is impulse-buy territory, and risking a knock-off to save $1-5 isn't worth it. However, I'd still much rather buy through AliExpress than the likes of Tindie, and it's only partly about the sticker price: AliExpress quotes an all-in price in euros including VAT and shipping, and give a delivery deadline, typically 14-30 days away, although I can choose to pay for a faster service. They take payment via iDeal and never see my card number. I pay the quoted amount and no more. The package typically arrives in the Netherlands within a fortnight, gets rubber-stamped through customs because AliExpress have prepaid the VAT on my behalf, and lands on my doorstep the following day. I know how long customs checks take because the package has tracking and I get frequent status updates. So: pay money and stuff turns up on time. This brings joy. Tindie quote a VAT-exclusive price (since it does not handle VAT at all) and shipping information is buried in their awful interface. AFAICT, it's $25 for the XT-IDE, or possibly that's just for a bare XT-IDE PCB, sent via an USPS's cheapest untracked service which takes about a month to get to the Netherlands. When it arrives, I'll be shaken down for some random amount of VAT and handling fees before the package is released from customs, and this adds a further week's delay even if I pay promptly. So: pay a lot more money, then wait indefinitely before paying even more money, then wait some more for stuff to turn up. The lack of tracking or deadline causes worry that it will never turn up. This does not bring joy. The greatest enemy of US small businesses is US business practices, particularly when it comes to shipping. If you impose unnecessary extra unpredictable expense and inconvenience which tells the rest of the world you don't really want to do business with them, don't act surprised when the rest of the world takes their custom elsewhere.
