Uh. Interesting.
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i understand even less now!
edit: reading #2 gives me no more knowledge, but it’s good to know that the keyboard community is apparently stuffed to the brim with Chinese supervillains
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The translation in the comments is much better than the main post, which helps even though he didn’t finish (yet?). It’s still kind of a clusterfuck though…
If I understand correctly, he’s saying that he (Lee) is a former Gateron employee (cofounder?) and created the molds for T1. Tsai, another former Gateron employee (and at some point also working for/with Lee?), was making the stealios completely separately from Lee and selling them to KBDfans.
So when the whole debacle came to light, Gateron threatened Tsai that they would take him to court (and he would go to prison) unless he gave them the molds for T1 so they could pin the blame on Lee (somehow???).
The reddit OP (not Lee or Tsai) says in the comments that KBD was buying T1 through Tsai, which would explain why KBD would pull the T1 after the stealio incident. But as far as I can tell, that info is never given in either translation of Lee’s post.
This entire situation is feeling more and more like a moral equivalent of the calculations gif of Zach Galifianakis.
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So, if I get this right, it’s a frame job? I understand absolutely nothing.
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It seems like a lot of people pointing fingers at each other with not a lot of proof coming from anywhere, and someone new popping up to join in every month or so
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I can’t wait to see what the next story arc entails -_-
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people love drama.
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While the finger pointing & he said/she said is getting a little crazy at this point in the situation, I do think one has an air or truthfulness to it. Out of all the apologies, excuses, explanations deflecting the blame to someone else, etc… This seems like the most plausible scenario if the creator of the T1 is being truly honest with us here. Although there is one ubious thing in his tirade IMO, it’s seeming he is claiming to own a factory, equipment, & molds to produce switches. What is the name of that business Durock by any chance? If that is the case & he is neglecting to claim Durock as his, that feels pretty shady to me. The common conception is Durock had some part in producing the counterfeit Tealios. So you’d think he’d either admit Durock is his operation & had nothing to do with the Stealios or name his company so we can see he isn’t affiliated with Durock.
While I’d love to get some new switches into the community, I’d have to know a lot more about really happened before ever buy stuff through KBDfans, zFrontier, buy products produced by Durock, & accept T1 as a drama free switch. Guess we’ll just have to wait & see how this all shakes out with the Kola GB for now?
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This seems to help clear the air a little bit more. It does make more sense here, but I still have no idea what’s going on. I wonder what Wei, Gateron, and Zeal’s statements will be regarding this whole mess.
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I’m still curious how Zeal’s post that started it all racked up so many down votes while KBDfans’ post got all the upvotes.
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Well, both factories obviously have a vested interest in this situation. Something before all of this caused him and Gateron to be on really bad terms. The translation says that he was “forced out due to nefarious schemes [he] can’t talk about” so it seems like he is hinting that this is part of some greater conspiracy to destroy him, not just competition as an ex-employee.
Because it’s so stupid to sell counterfeits when Li was already producing his own switches, I am inclined to believe that stealios are indeed a completely separate thing from T1’s production. T1 got pulled from KBDfans because of Gateron claiming they were stolen molds as well. It doesn’t seem to me they came from the same distributor?
As for the claim of who the molds originally belong to, well that’s still unclear to me. Either someone is lying, or all of this is really about how Li is allowed to use the knowledge obtained from working at Gateron. The latter makes the most sense to me in that Li likely didn’t literally steal the molds, but Gateron, fueled by past bad blood, has a lot of interest in making sure Li does not compete with them.
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I only ever used the T1s once, so maybe my impression was bad, but what I can’t get over is that I found the T1 to be pretty meh, like not bad but definitely not great. Why can’t we just let the past be the past and move on? It’s not like there are no other options out there.
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I never tried them personally, just was speaking to the fervour some have for getting them made again.
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Reddit as a whole loves KBDfans, value products, and generally dislikes “overpriced products” even if those expensive products are innovative and high quality enough to justify the high price. IMO their hype and fervor for T1’s comes from the fact they desperately want T1’s to be competitive with HP’s and V2’s because the price is so much lower, even if (IMO) they really aren’t, at all.
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i was gonna say something to that tune but you just knocked it out of the park
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really i think the #kustoms circlejerk in the discord is a reaction to reddit’s overvaluing of cheap stuff, even if it’s kinda garbage
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Meanwhile, Cherry the original IP holder is making… cherry MX browns! and chilling
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“Here, have this one switch that we designed for one specific keyboard 20 years ago but we keep using for everything. No, we aren’t going to make any more stems. What do you mean we have bad spring weights? That’s what Reds are for.”
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