• Canuck@sh.itjust.works
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    7 hours 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.

    • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      They intentionally, systemically withheld refunds from customers who’d been waiting years over schedule for a phone, and I’m sorry, I didn’t realize COVID-19 was responsible for them scamming their backers in 2019. Mind that the ship date announced August 2017 was January 2019.

      Fuck the fuck off with this disgraceful apologia. Either you know better and are preying on people who are less familiar, or you should know better for how trivial it is to find this information.

      • favoredponcho@lemmy.zip
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        3 hours 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 hour 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.