Saw on the SP Discord that the sale to Will et al is off. Anybody know what happened and/or what we might expect?
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Iāve been hearing rumors for a while, so Iām not surprised. Now that itās official, Iām probably going to finish out my current projects in their profiles, and then wait until things stabilize before doing more. Most of my interest in designing this past year has been rooted in excitement for the changes and projects Will was working on. I need to see how any new buyer handles things, but right now Iām pretty bummed.
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Is somebody selling Zeal tactile stems by the 100-pack on AliExpress?
I think they are V2, though.
hmmā¦ i thought they were making some great changes lately. Hope it can continue.
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Iām really surprised by this news. I thought the SP handoff was a done deal like a year agoā¦
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oh dang that is unfortunate to hear.
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I did too, but in retrospect I can easily imagine it being a memorandum of understanding, subject to due diligence, with Will being brought in early as an employee or consultant.
And goodness knows the economic conditions affecting both the resins and the end products have changed. I just hope it all went down in a way that will make it easy for all parties to move forward.
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Jae went into some details on his stream this weekend, about Bob disapproving of Willās planned changes, and intervening to prevent them while the sale was still pending. Seems like everything fell apart about three weeks ago. The money wasnāt going to change hands until later this year.
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RIP Signature Plasticsā¦
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Lol. You mean all the positive changes?
I am not super into the SP Discord so a lot of this might be lost on me, but it feels like SP has had more positive buzz in the last year since Will coming in and whipping it up. Kind of feels like a dumb moveā¦ they are either stuck in the mud or they got what they wanted out of Will, why go through with finalizing the sale? 
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Right? For the first time, they were bringing in other vendors to partner with them, and doing marketing and streamer outreach. You could ask questions on their Discord and get replies! There were buzzy promotions like the Blackest Black set, the Black Friday sale, and new stuff like making their own artisans. Sets were being made in greater numbers with lower prices, and the kitting was being standardized in a way that made sense. They made new DCS convex bar molds, and almost got DSS ones to match, until those were scrapped recently.
Since Will stepped aside in early March, their social media has mostly been dark, and the prices have shot up again. Richat and SMRT were $100 during their presale, but Cafe was $140. There were other projects that would have made things much simpler and more convenient for designers and other vendors, and given buyers new choices.
All of thatās out the window now. I donāt know if theyāre going to find a buyer whoās friendlier to, and more in touch with, the hobbyist community.
I donāt want to be too gloom and doom, and maybe things will work out. I want to keep making designs for them; SA is my favorite profile. But I am concerned, and hope that they donāt toss everything Will was doing to modernize things.
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Unfortunately I have been in this hobby long enough to know that while the desire might be there, the head people at SP donāt know how to modernize.
They have attempted this before and it didnāt pan out.
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Just to play devilās advocate, we donāt necessarily know how the numbers were looking for the new initiatives, or what the breakdown is for industrial and OEM clients versus hobbyists and whether Will had a plan for that part of the business. I have heard, for instance, that Devlin in the UK wants no part of the hobbyist market despite making caps that people find really cool.
Certainly sad though, and frankly even in these bullshit interesting economic times, boutique manufacturing is probably still the best path forward for a US-based company doing injection molding of easily shipped items. Itās just not going to be a particularly broad path, but Iād rather it be SP themselves than a bunch of keeb nerds panicking and trying to rustle up enough money to save the molds from a liquidation sale someday.
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Here we thought SP was saved but not soā¦ Iām with @Piperaceae & gonna wait & see before I continue to buy from them. Really sad as Will seemed to have not only big plans for SP, but good plans IMHO.
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Very true, that part was not lost on me. I know the hobby community is a very small aspect of their business. I guess I was just armchair thinking that if they were doing so well with the hobby side (with new blood and ideas), the regular side would be pretty easy to manage.
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And in todayās episode of āLetās Tank the Economyā
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It dawned on me today that this is the only hobby I can think of where you can order a very expensive product with no return window.
It can be beautifully made, but still somehow not vibe with you when you type on it.
And then you are stuck with a gorgeous slab of aluminum that you wonāt use and will only look at it to admire it until you decide to sell it on the secondary market 
I must be insane.
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Or just optimistic.
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I just came across this small form factor card computer, and the keyboard made me cringe (and not just because of the chiclet keys). On second look, itās kind of intriguing, from a āhaving your cake and eating it tooā standpoint (but maybe the cake is cursed?)
Itās as if someone saw a Planck and said ā4 rows is nice, but I want numbers and mods and an inverted-t arrow cluster.ā and these guys went āhold my beer.ā And what is with the ortho layout, but alphas staggered by a column per row? That would likely take some getting used to.
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