I am seriouly puzzled about the buzz the L5 USA is causing here. If you find it a ripoff and unattractive in price just ignore the offer. It is not like the regular L5 is going away. I see how it can be attractive to some, I am going to skip theoffer as well. But I am not loudly lamenting on how it is too expensive. Nobody is forcing the L5 USA on anybody…
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Comment Warning: Pure speculation with assumptions based on feelings.
Also, also, the USA phones are probably the same net profit for Purism as the regular.
Good points except the last one. 
One person’s will (and ability of course) to spend x amount of money on 1 product does not & can not constitute the [market] value of that product. It’s valid only for that single transaction.
In general sense, yes - the product is worth as much as people are willing to pay for it. And I don’t think anyone here would argue against it. What people are saying here is cost benefit ratio , not whether or not we are getting ripped off. Everybody knows that funds needed to support production in US are multi fold especially on this small scale. That’s why they gladly paid 600-700 for below mid range spec phone
For overwhelming majority (hope to see a poll) benefit for added cost is just not there.
Edit
Though, we are not the target group anyway. For Corp world and Govt it’s well worth it.
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In addition there is, as you wrote, ability to pay. If it’s a choice between paying the rent that month and getting the phone, some people will choose to pay the rent and miss out on the US phone, even if they judge that all-US construction is worth paying three times as much.
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And for all of this close to impossible production and crazy cost added for any tech manufacturing we have greedy US Corps to thank - for outsourcing everything to PRC, (including intellectual property) decades ago This “theft” is the biggest myth sold to us. All major tech was given along with money for manufacturing. The rest is pettite theft.
And at this point, we are beyond criopled and fully dependent on Chinese factories. We are behind on all aspects. It’s unfreaking believable.
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That’s how free markets work!
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I beg to differ. The accepted bid exactly equals the market price (value of item + added value of charitable contribution).
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Wait…what?
Do you mean like the way shareholders can vote in traded companies (as far as I know Purism isn’t traded) ?
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I guess I wasn’t clear in my previous posts in this thread. We can’t just make up some big number and say that this is how much it costs to make the Librem 5 in the US and then assume that it is a small fraction of that price to make the same Librem 5 phone in China. Fabricating circuit boards and populating them with electronic components is an automated process in both countries. It’s not like you need an army of third-world people soldering components on to the circuit boards by hand for ten cents per hour. Granted, prices are higher in the US, but not by that much. High volume production often goes to China because when you make millions of anything, every penny saved per unit is a big chunk of money in total. In low volume, it doesn’t change much. The finished phone is a small fraction of Purism’s retail price. You could probably double the cost of production and still see a profit when not counting development costs which are usually recovered only after shipping a large enough quantity. The final hand assembly of the finished phone does not take that long either. We saw a video of Todd doing it himself (for the most part) in just a few minutes. To try to establish a higher market price for the phone to get additional security is a flawed idea for so many reasons. If the government wants several of them built in the US, I am sure that Purism will be happy to set a price for a quantity of them per government specifications at a contract price with a significant down payment.
When I spoke of community oversight, I was speaking about us here on this forum, and of oversight by everyone who had already pre-ordered a phone. We were led to believe that we would get a safe phone for $700. To offer a yet safer phone of the same model with no design differences for nearly 3x the price before delivering on a majority of their shipping commitments makes me wonder if Purism doesn’t need to raise enough money before they will be capable of meeting their existing obligations. If that is the case, they need to disclose that information to us now, not let speculation by uninformed people (about manufacturing costs) create some artificial value in Hope’s of bailing them out. After a majority of Purism’s existing shipping commitments have been met, then
perhaps an option for a US-made version at a slightly higher price (proportionate to real market values) may be a good idea. Right now, Purism needs to fulfill their commitments which are for the most part, past due or at least past most people’s expectations based on what Purism has said prior to announcing their shipping schedules in batches. No significant volume production has occurred yet and the initial shipping date has passed. I see the multiple batches with no real Aspen shipping and very low quantity of Birtch shipping as smoke and mirrors to cover for a failure to meet Purism’s initial announced shipping date. Now they offer the same product at a higher price, based on more contrived value. What Purism really needs to do is to prove to us that they are capable of meeting a significant portion of their shipping commitments, the same shipping commitments they made when they first announced a shipping date, long before the batches were announced. Everything ordered and yet not shipped past that initially announced shipping date is spin on the reality of a real struggle and of a mostly failed attempt by Purism to meet initial shipping commitments. And now they want more money for the same product. Purism needs to drop the pride and either open their books to someone who can loan them more money (which they might have done) or to ask for donations to the social purpose. To make yet more promises before fulfilling on their initial commitments is cause for suspicion. Ask yourself, where are we now compared to where we expected to be, when Purism first announced a shipping schedule, long before anyone heard about Aspen or Birtch? For all but an undisclosed number of a few example individuals, the shipping date has been pushed back by almost a year.
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Oh, so that’s the reason behind all this buzz? If that’s the impression people get, then I guess it can justify their reactions. However, I don’t think there’s a real merit behind it - it’s more of a special kind of service for people with special requirements, not “security upgrade” that everyone could actually easily benefit from. What would you say about a service that lets you pay huge amount of money just to get your phone hand-delivered by trusted Purism employee at your door? Would that be safer than the regular one? Sure it would. Would that be super expensive? Sure it would. Would that make the regularly shipped phones worse? No, I don’t think so. If you don’t require such levels of extra-safety, you don’t really lose anything just by this extra option existing for people who do, even if you don’t choose it or can’t afford it (as you wouldn’t be able to choose it anyway).
As a person from Europe with no special supply chain requirements, personally I wouldn’t ever consider ordering the USA edition, as it doesn’t bring any real benefit to me - but I can see that other people may be really glad that it exists regardless of its price.
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It’s interesting to me that you say “all this speculation is bad” and then go on to speculate why the price is so high. Now I can’t decide if we should take what you say seriously or not.
Edit: this sounds like I’m being a jerk, but I’m not. I’m just confused.
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Well, it’s not “us” because I feel differently and I pre-ordered too (so it’s not the unanimous opinion required to be “us”). Please say “some of us” or similar and please don’t lump me in with … all this. TIA
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I may be a small percentage, but I agree with what you say and where you’re coming from
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I’m somewhat surprised that people are upset that the Librem 5 USA exists as an option since the Librem 5 still exists as the mass-market choice. (I’m also surprised that people think that such a niche product at that price point would raise a lot of funds). I would suspect that it is not intended for just about anyone in this thread.
It might be useful if you think of it like our anti-interdiction services–it’s an add-on item that costs more, for a specific set of our customers who have asked for that kind of feature. Neither anti-interdiction services, nor the Librem 5 USA, is a mass-market product (although it would be great if the mass market valued such things).
In the case of the Librem 5 USA, it’s another example of our continuing to explore ways to improve the security of our products and offer those kinds of improvements as an option to people who need them. In this case we are exploring ways to further tighten the supply chain so we can oversee more of it directly like we do with the Librem Key. Some of our customer base is very concerned about this issue.
Perhaps at some point such an option will have mass market appeal like the Librem 5 (and therefore mass production) but I suspect in the mean time it will be for a specific group of people (like with our anti-interdiction services) who have very specific threats they are trying to address.
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Y’know what I really like nice things. Here’s the thing though, I’ve been spending a sh$t tonne on my little brother who is going through a nervous break down because of a divorce lately and don’t make that much to begin with. I can’t afford a librem 5 USA. Yet, I am still very happy for anyone who can afford a Librem USA !!! It makes me happy to see anyone afford a high end product that does good, and maybe I’ll never afford an i8 etc. etc. but at least I can still dream about it and it brightens my day to see it as my desktop wallpaper. Keep doing what you do purism because anyone who has the attitude of “If I can’t have nice things than nobody should” …shouldn’t.
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@StevenR, I agree with your general point that it shouldn’t cost Purism 3 times more to produce the Librem 5 USA than the Librem 5, but prices in Capitalism are determined by demand, not by cost of production. (We can argue about the morality of that, but that is another discussion.) As far as I know, Purism is the only company offering anything like the Librem 5 USA, so it can set a very high price if it thinks that there is enough demand to justify it.
Like you, I would like to see more transparency from Purism, but I don’t agree with your speculation that Purism is in financial trouble, because companies on the verge of bankruptcy aren’t likely to:
- increase their number of employees by a third in the last 3 months,
- voluntarily help finance the development of the Libre RISC-V chip,
- launch an expensive new web services platform that requires new investment in terms of servers and employees.
These actions tell me that Purism has secured additional sources of funding. I don’t know if Purism did this by getting more funding from angel investors, taking out loans, or receiving large orders from businesses/governments. The partnership with Halo Privacy and the announcement of the Librem 5 USA suggest to me that Purism is getting its extra funding from large corporate orders, but I’m speculating.
However, maybe you are right and Purism isn’t getting any extra funding. Let’s assume the following to do a back of the envelope calculation:
- the bill of materials for the Librem 5 is $300, so it has an average of $330 left over from each sale (assuming that most preorders occurred when the price was $599),
- there were $10k in preorders,
- Purism paid 15 employees to work for 2.5 years on the project at a cost of $100k per employee per year.
With those assumptions, Purism would have $3.3 million in funds after paying for the Librem 5’s bill of materials, but employee costs of $3.75 million, so I can understand your concern about Purism’s finances. However, Purism isn’t acting like a company that is failing financially. Employees usually know when there is a financial problem and start quitting the company, but the number of employees is increasing. From what I have read, people left Purism due to conflicts with Todd Weaver over the direction of the company, not because of a financial crisis.
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I merely agree with the sentiment that it’s something that would have been better to hold off until the current backlog of shipments has been fulfilled. If certain government agencies or high profile corporations put in pre-orders how do we know the focus won’t shift from previous commitments to those paying a higher premium? Personally I just think among other things the timing and optics are bad.
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That is one opinion against another then. I don’t care because I don’t think these two things are going to interfere. As Kyle says, this option is not going to be a major revenue stream.
As for the cost: If eg fixed tooling setup costs of 10,000$ exist (not uncommon, I can tell from experience) and purism sells a dozen of these, people should not be surprised that they are hell of expensive. Check out economies of scale on wikipedia if you don’t get it.
If puri.sm would offer a dinner with Todd for $10,000 on kickstarter, people would probably complain about what would happen to the production of Librems if the NSA bought a 1,000 dinners with Todd to keep him off-work…
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For long term sustainability, the cost of production is a floor price. I’m not qualified to speculate on what the cost of production is either for the Librem 5 standard edition or the Librem 5 USA edition.
For me, I don’t see what the big deal with this topic is. I could afford the Librem 5. I choose not to. I’m not going to get ‘hysterical’ that Purism is offering it, or that some consumers will choose it.
It would be interesting (to me) to know what level of interest there is at the quoted price for the Librem 5 USA edition, as that could provide encouragement, or not, for other similar ventures relating to the security challenge of global tech - but I don’t expect Purism to make that information public. If they do, great. If they don’t, fine.
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LOL. Almost lost a keyboard reading that.
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