I have been patient because I believe in Purism’s mission of providing privacy and secure phones and other hardware from the ground up.
When trying to discern if purism’s dates are promises or estimations, and our responses, complaints or tantrums, I think it’s only fair to acknowledge Purism’s active role in deception. It’s always been easy many times in retrospect, to look back and realize that Purism has known the bad news long before the public knew the bad news and that during a sometimes long interim, Purism did not disclose that bad news until a much later time. Instead, that they chose to wait until the most advantageous point in time for them, to make the disappointing disclosures. Sometimes, the bad news was even blamed on events with a timeline that couldn’t be fully reconsiled when put to scrutiny. In other words, not all of the excuses were credible. It’s also reasonable to expect an estimate to evolve in to a non-truth when the estimate is missed not by days or weeks, but by years, long before the pandemic.
As much as I believe in Purism’s mission, I think they often choose an unethical path with respect to disclosing information to their customers who each in their own small way, are small investors. I think it likely that Todd might take great exception (just my guess based on how pre-orders are treated) at the notion that pre-orderers are actually any kind of investors who are due any accountability by Purism. Pre-order customers seem to be only captive customers in any sence of the concept, nothing more. Purism confirmed that in my mind when they moved Librem 5 USA customers to the front of the line. And it didn’t matter to me at the time that they had yet one more excuse for doing that. The Librem 5 USA didn’t even exist when I placed my pre-order. A commitment is a commitment. If we split some hairs, we can call the Librem 5 USA a different product. But that doesn’t mean to me that Purism is willing to keep their commitments. Purism also broke their commitments to early pre-order customers that they could get their money back at any time before the product shipped. They made the new refund policy retroactive, causing delays in getting your money back by up to years, forcing early pre-order customers to endure a long-term risk that they never agreed to. So Purism does break their commitments. The complaints are valid.