I’ve been following Mycroft for a few years now since the announcement of Mark II. I even put my name on the list to reserve early on. I’ve followed the patenting issues and the problem with the plastic molder and having to redesign. I’ve been here. Covid made it not possible to buy one on release at $299. But since then the price just keeps going up. Up to $499, now. I’m in Canada, man. That’s like 700CAD. I kept checking the blogs but no real explanation for the increases. I guess these are a lot more expensive to make than you first thought. Or maybe you’re in a desperate rush recoup years of lost profit. Either way, at this cost, it’s not even competitive on the market of similar products.
While I get that you’re just launching and you gotta do what you have to to recoup investment and try to turn a profit, if think there’s a fine line between “Check out our sweet, new, competitive product” and pricing people out as privacy and open source only being available to the financially privileged. Well, anyway, the 700 CAD isn’t in my market of worth investing in preliminary product, sadly. Was looking forward to this for many years. I hope the price increase won’t cripple sales/the company and maybe the cost will come down, again. Either way, at this threshold for a commercial privacy-focused smart device, I guess I’m priced out and will have to wait for Mark III.