• Canuck@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    They had an ambitious project of designing a phone from scratch and ran into complications when covid hit just like other manufacturers, causing further delays. They eventually shipped the phone, and it does as advertised.

    You can order today and it will arrive in a few weeks. It’s the best GNU/Linux phone available today, can easily flash multiple distributions on it.

      • favoredponcho@lemmy.zip
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        1 month ago

        I suspect they spent the money customers gave them on trying to deliver the phones and refunds were difficult to provide.

        • Canuck@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          People who go into a crowdfunding campaign expecting either a product or a refund with no risk for just one or neither, aren’t the right audience for and shouldn’t be participating in crowdfunding.

          The delays and refund denials were not ideal, and perhaps they could have handled that better, but picking between complete insolvency delivering no product to anyone vs delivering the product to people who crowdfunded and pre-ordered, is the lesser of the two “evils” if people want to call it that, especially given the reality of the situation headed into COVID-19.

          • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            People who go into a crowdfunding campaign expecting either a product or a refund with no risk for just one or neither, aren’t the right audience for and shouldn’t be participating in crowdfunding.

            Okay, even if you assume this caveat emptor bullshit excuse to be the case: these refunds were not nearly limited to crowdfunding campaign backers. These were people who saw Purism advertising a finished product that they could preorder/order. This is the same position as if I’d go to Fairphone’s website, order a Fairphone 6, never receive it, request a refund, and either get denied repeatedly or ghosted indefinitely.

            You can’t “buyer beware” a legally established American company advertising a product. That’s just called a scam. And that’s already generously ignoring the crowdfunding backers they scammed by giving zero transparency to.

    • HubertManne@piefed.social
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      1 month ago

      Its amazing the complaints you get around crowdfunding. Its a gamble to begin with and anything that actually manages to refund in the end if it goes south is a success not a failure. Anything that actually delivers even if late is a massive success. Like if you judged every company by how well it met its internal timelines they would all be shit. crowdfunding is just more transparent.