New Update On Librem 5 Orders Email

Hardware Librem 5
21

To @dr_t point, or at least how I read it, when you go to the purism website, and look at the product itself and how long it will take you to get it, there tends to be one story. If you are aware of these forums, and track the discussions, you get another story.

But, to the point that @dos made, and I think others who take the time to engage in these forums and discussions, one of the things we realize also is that what pursim is trying to accomplish is quite revolutionary. And there are still lots of bugs and kinks to be worked out in it. If you combine the info that you get from this forum, the main website, and blogs, etc. one of the things I do like is there is more of a transparency then you get from companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, etc. To me the real difference between Purism and the mega corps is that Purism doesn’t have the financial resources they do. But, they still try to be transparent.

If you look at it from a business perspective, it probably wasn’t the best idea to start advertising and selling a product that is still in early development. That is a business call, in my mind, so I agree with @dr_t from this perspective, but I would disagree with them in that you can’t judge purism for that, becasue I don’t know what is happening behind the scenes. They couldn’t have predicted the pandemic, and supply line issues, etc. And, the unfortunate reality is Purism doesn’t have the resources at their disposal that megacorps have. Megacorp that are for less transparent about what they are really doing behind the scenes.

Through these forums, I’ve come to learn about a great many other groups, teams, companies that are working towards similar goals and visions that Purism has. So, I"m really thankful for that!

At the end of the day, though, I am anxious, frustrated and pulling my hair out as to when I can get my L5 :slight_smile: I’ve debated getting the pinephone pro. Mostly to tinker with. But, money is tight right now, and I do have working systems already (I opted for pixel 4a with grapheneOS to tide me over until the L5 arrives) so, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed.

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22

You make some good points, but I’d like to highlight one of the points on which I don’t believe you are correct. Had Purism delivered within the lead time they committed at the time I placed my order (and indeed, some placed their orders even earlier than I did), they would not have been affected by the pandemic, because the pandemic didn’t really get going until later. So the pandemic is irrelevant. It’s like a student who is late for his exam because he has overslept and then, being late, hits rush hour traffic - and then blames the rush hour traffic (which he would have missed had he got up on time) for missing his exam.

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here I am, reading the rant from OP on my L5 :smiley: :iphone:

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24

Heh, rant. I guess pictures do speak a thousand words, and I posted three of them.

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@zks1 Isn’t that exactly what crowdfunding is?
If a backer is unwilling to accept that risk, why even be a backer?

That can’t be said often enough.

@dr_t The pandemic (and its fallout, such as the current CPU shortage) is what’s standing between us and our Librems.
I think that your alternate history scenario, a universe where Purism delivered on time before the pandemic, has comparatively little impact on reality.

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I am not a “backer”. There was no crowdfunding when I placed my purchase order. The lead time promised at the time of placing my order expired before the pandemic had any impact. Your lies and smears are worse than those of the lamestream fraudcasters.

Will you please pull your ignorant head out of your bottom and check the facts before making insulting and factually incorrect posts about the company’s customers.

I paid the money. I was supposed to receive a product. Instead, I’m on the receiving end not only of nothing (except excuses) but also insults.

What is standing between me and my refund (at this point, I don’t care about the phone, which will be totally out of date by the time it ships) is Purism’s incompetence and dishonesty. The pandemic has nothing to do with it, and never had anything to do with it.

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27

Pardon?

When @zks1 mentioned “early development,” my impression was they were referring to the crowdfunding phase. My reply about backers was in good faith.

I certainly didn’t mean to insult the non-backers, nor did I mean to play down their justified anger. I apologize.

With that being said: I strongly disapprove of your choice of words. Someone making a factual mistake doesn’t make them fair game for verbal abuse.

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If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out. Your reply was expressly (via an at-tag) addressed to me. I made it clear in this thread I placed my order in 2019, which makes me a customer, not a crowdfunding backer. You accused me of living in an alternative history which had little impact on reality. You sound somewhat like a holier-than-thou wokeratus who knows how to lecture other people but has a fit if someone administers a bit of their own medicine back to them. Re. the choice of words, you were the first to address me, and your opening shot was an insult, so don’t lecture me about my choice of words - sort out your own words first. I don’t approve of your choice of words either, but I’m not a neurotic prima donna, so I know better than throwing a fit, I’ll just give you back what you throw at me in equal or greater measure.

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I think you’re reading into things and seeing something that isn’t there. @Lliure was trying to say that the pandemic is a factor now, having missed that you ordered in 2019 and were told you’d have your phone earlier. It’s an honest mistake, as was explained. We get that you’re upset and why you’re upset, but your frustration is aimed at the wrong target.

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30

The backer thing was in reply to @zks1, which had nothing to do with you.
Plus, I have apologized to you and other customers. I’m afraid I can’t do much more now to help you feel better.

Mind you, the single time I interacted with you was in reply to your comment:

in which I wrote:

which is criticizing your argument (not you as a person).

My comment was referring to the scenario you mentioned, the one where Purism delivered on time.
What exactly is it that makes you feel that it’s about you personally?

If my words have made you feel insulted in any way, then please help me understand so I can learn and communicate better next time.

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Btw, I’m taking a break from this thread now to help the discussion cool off.

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After the crowdfunder has ended there was still a long period of time while the phone has been in development but you could still preorder it to reserve your place in the queue. The shipment of mass production batch haven’t started until late 2020, before that it was quite obviously still in development. Of course the initial estimates for when development will be done were aiming for much earlier, but there were several delays along the way.

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Multiple of which were not communicated until after the self imposed estimated date had passed. This made it quite difficult for those placing a pre-order around that time to know just how far behind purism was at the time.

As such, stating:

Is a bit of an oversimplification of events.

@dr_t may not be communicating in what I would consider the most eloquent way, but I still think their points on this front are reasonably sound. With their student being late analogy reasonably apt (no, it is not “perfect” but no analogy is).

Not how it has been used in recent years, though there is a philosophical argument to be made there, blurring the lines between a pre-order and crowdfunding only hurts the consumer.

Aren’t refunds a separate topic to L5 orders? There are several threads on these forums with suggested paths forward for a refund that have allegedly worked for others it may be worth searching and reviewing some of the alternative methods if you are not getting, what you feel is reasonable response from Purism.

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34

Yep.

Just let people vent - but don’t respond. It only leads to flames.

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I’m perfectly aware - I haven’t joined the team until mid-2019; at that point of time all I knew about my 2017 order was just as much as what everybody else knew (so - close to nothing). Multiple delays and lack of communication doesn’t change the fact that in the middle of 2019 there was no phone to ship as it was still in active development, and that at that point of time shipment of existing preorders was supposed to start in Q3 2019 (in the end it slipped as well and started in Q4, but only to people who opted in for getting early batches - for the rest it was said to start in Q2 2020 and actually started in Q4 2020). Nobody can claim that they were ordering a “shipping product” back in the middle of 2019.

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36

Agreed, however the complaint I’ve seen hasn’t been that the phone was shipping but rather that it would be shipping in Q3 2019 and the way it was worded at the time did not state nor imply that shipping would start with 4 extremely small batches with weeks to months between them.

As such

Misrepresents what was being communicated to the customer on the shopping page and main website.

https://web.archive.org/web/20190830011625/https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
Available for pre-order now.
Shipping starts in Q3 2019 .

And from the most recent blog post at that time:
the previous Q2 estimate is now confirmed for Q3 product shipping
That doesn’t read as “for the rest it was said to start in Q2 2020”

Sure, if someone dug into the forums they would be able to find that there had been emails sent out regarding batches though no information on the size or timeliness of those batches nor was it stated nor implied on the main purism pages nor shopping pages that this was still in a state of active hardware development and that there would be multiple hardware revisions to come.

Yes, software development was “rapid” at the and was communicated in the blog posts as such (though again not on the main page nor shopping page, which are the pages most new customers would be guided to, especially by marketing but also by search results or word of mouth references).

For someone to be unhappy that Purism points largely to the pandemic for delays when it was stated by Purism that shipping was confirmed for Q3 2019 (markedly pre-pandemic) is a very valid criticism. This is also one of the better examples of Purism not communicating clearly the fact that Q3 2019 was an estimate, as most people don’t read confirmed shipping as estimated shipping.

This is not to say the pandemic hasn’t caused further delays, it absolutely has, but rather that blaming the pandemic obfuscates Purisms own failings along the way which is a less than honest argument. Does re-hashing the issue move things forward, no; but obfuscating the past does disenfranchise some of us that have been along for the ride and stuck through despite the mistakes along the way which is what causes me to feel it is appropriate to re-hash when context is removed, from either side (there are multiple posts from me pushing back against my fellow customers that misrepresent the context of their frustrations as well; I’m not here to bash, but rather would just like to see history represented accurately).

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37

Well, it sure doesn’t - but that’s a post from February and further delays happened since then even before COVID-19. The first shipping announcement wasn’t there until September, and it already mentioned all the batches and their ETAs (that also got delayed since publication of that post).

Before the device is actually being produced and shipped, any delivery estimation is just that - an estimation. Especially when we’re talking about “shipping starting” when there’s a huge backlog of orders to fulfill.

I don’t think anyone argues that the pandemic is the only reason for delays? That doesn’t make any sense at all. I mean, the pandemic started late-2019 and when I was ordering my phone in 2017 its estimated delivery was said to be Jan 2019. As we already established, there were no phones to ship (or even produce) at that point :stuck_out_tongue: Of course many delays happened during the development, that goes without saying. However, we’re now past the development period and after many struggles are currently limited just by the available component supply, which was kinda unimaginable before the pandemic, so I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say that without the pandemic Librem 5 would have most likely already reached shipping parity some time ago.

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@dos, we know the truth now. But back then they talked about batches for all (Sept. 2019) and 50,000 devices in no time (Oct 2019). I wrote about it here:

https://forums.puri.sm/t/purisms-deceptions-and-misleadings/13315

And I think now they needed those deceptions for fooling investors especially. And it worked: " Purism announced closing $2.5m in notes in December 2019."

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Same here man, this is why manufacturing should be decentralized.