Designers Spend Months Making Custom Keycaps, Then the Counterfeits Arrive 131
An anonymous reader shares a report: Briggs [anecdote in the story] is part of a growing movement of artists and designers who produce alternatives to the stock keycaps sold with most mechanical keyboards. The small plastic blocks are easy to detach from their switches using simple pulling tools, and changing them can give a keyboard a radically different look, feel, and sound -- not to mention turn a generic computer accessory into something much more personal. Swapping out keycaps for aftermarket alternatives has become so commonplace that it's not uncommon to see premium keyboards sold without keycaps in the box. But as designer keycaps have become more popular, so have cheaper knockoffs. These keysets use the same color schemes and often even the same names, in an apparent attempt to piggyback off the popularity of original designs. To a casual observer it's rarely obvious that they're produced by an unrelated company, without any input from the designer, and may be capturing sales that could have supported the original creator.
keyboard barbie (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:keyboard barbie (Score:5, Insightful)
Boredom. I have a couple mechanical keyboards and have swapped out the keycaps a few times. I can see the appeal, and I can also see the deep money pit it can lead to. I mean, the same question you ask could be asked of people who customize their cars, landscape their yards, trim their pubes, etc. Your time, your money, your business, not mine. :: shrug ::
Re:keyboard barbie (Score:5, Funny)
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custom keyboards (Score:3)
About as useful as Facebook, but more expensive.
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Re: custom keyboards (Score:3)
But maybe less costly
Become your own manufacturer (Score:5, Insightful)
A simple solution is to make them yourself. By outsourcing them (to a Chinese injection molder), you're essentially saying "copy the sh*t out of this". One way to combat it is to make them yourself but small scale injection molding isn't very practical. It could be though. One can put together a pretty decently equipped machine shop for not a lot of money. Laser cutters, lathes, mills, press brakes, production-quality 3D printing can all be had for $3000-$5000 (per machine). Injection molding equipment for a few thousand dollars isn't really a thing though.
Re:Become your own manufacturer (Score:5, Informative)
You can find a HackSpace in your city. They usually supply all the equipment and material for free - or at little cost. I never been to one. But there is one in London, UK [hackspace.org.uk]
Re:Become your own manufacturer (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, maker spaces aren't as ubiquitous as you'd like. What I find counterintuitive is that universities with engineering schools don't allow students into machine shops. How else are you going to learn the capabilities and limitations of the tools? You can design anything you want in CAD but you either can't make it or it's too expensive to make the way you designed it. Talking to machinists and working with the tools is the only way you learn that stuff.
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That is one of biggest the advantages of an apprenticeship program over an academic education. (The other being, of course, that the money flows in the other direction.)
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Um. Bollocks. I spent many happy hours machining and welding in the engineering department workshops at a far better uni than you went to.
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If you find it counterintuitive, I deduce that you've never had to deal with the insurance claims for when an unauthorised person gets injured in a workplace. No organisation wants to go through that a second time. Well, no rational organisation.
Null. By the time the putative student has completed their course and gon
Re:Become your own manufacturer (Score:5, Interesting)
There's nothing magic about injection moulding. Of the things you mentioned, it's the simplest. You can buy one for a few thousand, get a pretty fancy one for 30k, or roll your own for a hundred bucks following instructions on YouTube. You can get an acceptable CNC to make a small number of dies for under a thousand too.
If you want to make big stuff or churn out a million pieces a day it's going to cost you, but if you're a startup making designer keycaps you can probably get going for less than your first year's rent.
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The problem is keycaps aren't easy.
You could go cheap with rubber stamped keycaps - just buy the keycaps from China in bulk and then print them with a rubber stamp - this is extremely cheap but non-durable (the rubber stamp is reusable, the pattern comes from the silkscreen which are extremely cheap to make).
The problem with injection molding is your cheap injection molding thing you can get at a hackerspace or something, isn't suited to doing the 60-120 keys you need individually (from 60% to full size and
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Take a look at the article. The keycaps in question are bog standard except for the colour of the plastic.
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They can fall off too. I have a Logitech G610 where if it falls an inch, a dozen key caps fly off. Once I squirted a drop of Elmer's Glue in a few and put them back, maybe it helped with those keys, but it's a pain in the ass that I don't want to do for a whole keyboard. If a big company like Logitech has trouble with the QC to make the key cap stem hole tight enough to not fall off, imagine how bad knock-offs can be.
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That's not what is happening here and doing it in-house won't help.
The issue is that making key-caps requires expensive set-up for the machinery, so making small batches is uneconomical. Because of that they do a pre-order, where they show what the keycaps will look like and ask people to pay in advance, with an order submitted once enough people have paid to make it feasible.
So the actual issue they have is that they aren't reaching a big enough market. The people making the clones sell them world-wide. Ob
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"This country is so weakened that if you want to avoid sending your design to a thieving communist dictatorship (committing literal genocide as we speak) to do basic injection molding that we used to do for decades, who is then allowed to turn around and sell your own design without any import tariffs or other financial punishment, you need to buy a personal 3D printer and live with inferior results."
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Not even remotely viable (Score:4)
You jump straight on injection moulding while missing the key part: That is the lowest cost, fastest, and least complicated part of the keypad production process. The issue is one of manual labour for custom patterns. Look down, see all those keys that are the same shape? Yet they all are unique. Not even the two Ctrl keys on my keyboard are identical with each having the word Ctrl printed in a different location.
When you become your own manufacturer of labour intensive custom equipment then you're competing with people on a labour cost basis. That's not a game you have a remote chance in hell of winning.
A whole industry ... (Score:4, Interesting)
A whole industry that I didn't know existed until yesterday, much less that it was big enough to be worth significant counterfeiting.
Unlike who? (Score:4, Insightful)
But as designer keycaps have become more popular, so have cheaper knockoffs
I mean one could literally change out "keycap" for pretty much any designer item and this would remain a true statement. I know shocking development, but some people exist to ride the coattails of others, news at eleven.
To a casual observer it's rarely obvious that they're produced by an unrelated company
Yes, something is niche, the people who buy are pretty much in the know. When it becomes mainstream, you have people who are just jumping in late game just trying to look like their part of the crew, and thus they don't know where to go and so they just buy knock-off shit. Eventually enough knock-off gets sold you've got people who bought knock-offs talking to people who bought knock-offs, and poof a trend is born.
I mean seriously y'all this can't be people's first rodeo with this nonsense.
without any input from the designer, and may be capturing sales that could have supported the original creator
If you're that serious to give your money to someone, get the fuck off Amazon and go email/tweet/whatever the designer and ask them directly. However, the vast majority of folks don't give a fuck. If it looks close enough to the original then it's good enough. All us peons are fucking broke, the vast majority of people just want the trend for $ bucks. Only a few who are hardcore about the "whatever it is" care enough to spend $$$$ bucks.
This applies for ALL KINDS OF THINGS. This isn't something unique to keycaps. Moral of the story should be, "stop buying stupid trendy shit just because it's trendy." If you're honestly into the whole thing, then you know where to buy the shit. Everything about the linked story applies only to fuckers who are trying to be "cool."
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But as designer keycaps have become more popular, so have cheaper knockoffs
I mean one could literally change out "keycap" for pretty much any designer item and this would remain a true statement. I know shocking development, but some people exist to ride the coattails of others, news at eleven.
I do see your point, but there is a significant difference in putting another wheel out on the market, and counterfeiting.
And if counterfeiting is what is actually going on here, then I have no idea why TFS makes that about as clear as mud. Just say it already instead of sounding like you're being paid not to say it.
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Just say it already instead of sounding like you're being paid not to say it
That's modern journalism in a nutshell.
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They should look to the fashion industry for hints. Clones of popular styles are extremely common in fashion. So are out-right knock-offs with trademark protected logos on them, but not as common as clothing that just copies the style of others.
The main way they deal with it is by making their brands desirable. They know they aren't going to sell everyone a Gucci handbag or an expensive suit*, so clones at the cheap end of the market aren't really an issue.
* Okay I admit I don't own any suits and don't know
Expesinve versions are wierd and evil. (Score:2)
One cannot just buy the top end handbags or clothing. You have to be a long term customer, developing a relationship with the brand. Then and only then will they deign to sell you the super high end Hermes bag for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The only reason they can sell them for that much is because of how hard it is to buy them. It's not about the cost to make, or even the money. They care more about the strength and exclusivity of their brand than anything else.
Note, the upside of this is th
Is it cloners or crooked manufacturers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Only way would be to work with a local shop that has morals. And since they are local there would be legal protections for your design.
On the other hand if you have to pre-sell your product before it can be manufactured then you have already lost the game.
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I think you absolutely spelled out a pretty common tactic. Seems like if you have the volume needed to justfy outsourcing into China and are really worried about this you need some local law representation to cover yourself (and it's admittedly tricky in China with their nebulous IP law, a lot seems to happen on a handshake basis) and probably spend the money to visit the factory as well and get face to face.
This is a bit of a cake-and-eat-it-too situation, you have an easily reproducible product (the real
We hate DRM, Copyrights, and Patents until... (Score:5, Insightful)
We hate things like DRM, Copyrights, patents... All those legal big government things that keep the little man down, and prevents innovation. Until you find it is your product being copied, and done for cheap, because you did all the R&D and sales effort to make it popular, so one could invest confidently in mass production equipment as it is now a popular product, and you can justify the cheaper build in bulk design.
THIS (Score:2)
THIS.
Don't invest in DRM and moot patents.
Invest in cheaper manufacturing, lower cost product, while sales your numbers go up.
If you stick to premium price, while popularity goes up, don't expect competition to keep the price high.
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Way to completely miss the point.
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Eh, I'm pretty sure for a lot of slashdotters their problem with copyright or patents is not with the protections themselves, it's that they go on too long nowadays.
Re: We hate DRM, Copyrights, and Patents until... (Score:2)
Honestly I still hate DRM, copyrights, patents even then.
I'm also giving away essentially all of my "creative" work for free. Why shouldn't I? I don't depend on it for a living.
Now I assume your argument is going to be "but others do depend on it!", to which I'll reply: then let's change that. Forcing someone to live off artificial scarcity of pure information is not a sustainable strategy of a species whose biggest asset and evolutionary advantage is the ability to process information.
Platic or...? (Score:3)
So the examples they show, Olivia and Olive, are just different colored plastic. Considering the keycaps have to physically conform to fairly tight specs or they won't fit or work, how much "design" is put into these? Color combinations?
This [tomshardware.com] is much more creative, and considering it is metal probably harder to clone.
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To be fair keyboard nerds will see the differences. The use of outline arrows on the shift keys. The position of the legends, the font used.
The best way to compete is probably to offer a better product. The cheap keycaps are printed/etched on, the more expensive ones are double shot meaning. The difference is that double shot legends never wear off because they go right through the keycap, where as printed/etched are only on the surface and will be worn away eventually.
Looking at the examples, the originals
Re: Platic or...? (Score:2)
Thank you. Very informative
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Hey dude, it took serious design effort to rip off a rose gold and black colour scheme from every fashion watch maker ever.
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are just different colored plastic.
Not just colour. Look closer and you'll find the design elements. The keys are pretty much standard and not at all what the article is about.
The end is near (Score:1)
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Custom key caps. Seriously?
I wonder what thing in life you like that we could make fun of? I mean how can it bother you so much that people have different areas of interest?
Thanks for the article (Score:3)
Now I won't be surprised when I see a keyboard without keys...
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Have you heard of the Das Keyboard with all blank keys? I got one cheap a while back that had been abused, probably someone spilled soda on it, because a whole swath of keys (about 20-25% of the keyboard!) were sticky. I had to de-solder, disassemble, clean, reassemble, and re-solder all the sticky keys. Then it was time to put the key caps back on. They're all blank, so easy, right?
Each row had a different profile. I had to look for the mold marks (raised lettering on black plastic) to sort them by rows.
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- but that is precisely what this And don't forget the F/J keys with the raised bumpsis for. (See also the bar or dot on the "5" in the middle of the numeric keypad.) My text book called them "home keys", but your language might have a different name.
Didn't your typing text book
How is this different from the clothing market? (Score:2)
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What are these guys whining about?
It never happened to THEM, so it's never happened before!
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s/forever/"clothing or designer handbags"/
You could .. (Score:3)
Wall (Score:2)
We need to build a wall around China.
Amazon.com effect... (Score:2)
If it's made of plastic, it's going to be copied (Score:2)
So, intellectual property IS a thing finally? (Score:3)
Wow! This almost calls it theft — and certainly puts a negative spin on the practice...
Quite refreshing, really, after years — nay, decades [slashdot.org] — of Slashdot arguing, Intellectual Property is not [slashdot.org], and denouncing any corporation seeking to enforce its own as "greedy".
Play stupid games, have your stupid prizes cloned. (Score:3)
Silly stuff is totally fine but being naive is not fine nor excusable. Being naive is despicably foolish therefore wrong.
If you want to make money before someone else clones your cute trifles for less money the way is as it has always been, produce your toys in-house then sell enough to make an acceptable profit then move to the next thing when that market is taken over by competition.
Trifles have always been the lowest hanging fruit with cheap toys of other sorts flooding the eager markets of the West. It would be literally insane to expect anything different.
Counterfeiting (Score:2)
What an interesting issue that is unique to key caps. I hope this does not become a wider-spread issue that affects all of electronics.
Aboriginal flag comparison (Score:2)
So yesterday you lot were sniping at the aboriginal guy who got paid for his flag design, and today you are getting all weepy about poor misunderstood custom key cap designers. Right....
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone can buy something that looks the same, acts the same, feels the same, has the same quality and a lower price, it means YOUR product is over-priced.
Wrong.
It might have taken me weeks or months to produce the original designs. I have to recover that investment.
The cloners don't, therefore they can sell cheaper.
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Then don't send your designs to the cheapest Chinese factory you can find to produce the product if you value your IP. That's been common sense for two decades.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Can we categorize all of Asia as "known forgers"?
Depends how racist one would want to be. I cannot.
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Don't complain about clones. Innovate. (Score:1, Troll)
The cloners also have to invest.
It's not like they have to sell a lot to recoup setup, tooling, logistics, and overhead costs.
and they have the disadvantage of starting late.
If you complain about clones, you either:
a) don't innovate enough.
b) are wildly overpriced
c) both
Don't complain about clones. Innovate.
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Bullshit. The cloners already know there is a market and that a particular design sells. They have zero risk.
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The cloners also have to invest.
It's not like they have to sell a lot to recoup setup, tooling, logistics, and overhead costs.
and they have the disadvantage of starting late.
If you complain about clones, you either:
a) don't innovate enough.
b) are wildly overpriced
c) both
Don't complain about clones. Innovate.
I guess you don't realize that getting a mold made can cost $10,000. If the factory quietly shares your mold with other makers then their mold cost is $0. This has nothing to do with being overpriced. You need to stop talking and start learning.
Re: Don't complain about clones. Innovate. (Score:3)
These are key caps. The molds already exist. This is just theft of the artwork, a simply copyright issue. Sue the distributors (Amazon etc) for copyright infringement. Or offer your customers some tangible benefits your competitors would be unable to compete with (NFT, original artwork etc)
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These are key caps. The molds already exist. This is just theft of the artwork, a simply copyright issue. Sue the distributors (Amazon etc) for copyright infringement. Or offer your customers some tangible benefits your competitors would be unable to compete with (NFT, original artwork etc)
/sigh
As they stated... the clone caps are inferior molds and the customers don't always know they are buying the knock offs... Which is why one maker is now serializing his keys.
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Re:Don't complain about clones. Innovate. (Score:4)
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Welcome to the fashion industry! Somehow clothing and other fashion items manage to survive despite having to deal with the exact same thing.
Clone of a clone (Score:2)
There is nothing "original" about making keycaps for mechanical keyboards in a different color. IBM (or someone else) designed them 40 years ago or so in beautiful beige. Telling a manufacturer "make this, only purple" is not a new design, it's a modified clone. The "counterfeits" are a clone of a clone, just with ever so slightly less originality.
So sorry (Score:2)
Different color AND different font? I'm so sorry, I didn't realize there was so much creativity involved in this process. I hear if you take a best-selling novel and reprint it in Comic-Sans, it's essentially a brand new book and you are the official author.
Re: What do you expect? (Score:2)
You're not going to recoup it by pricing yourself above your competitors, passing off your potential customers who could care less about your design effort to someone else.
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Isn't this the same as with everything else? Either you make some effort to protect your IP or others will copy it if there is a market for it and they can make it cheaper than you can. The trouble is that protecting your IP can easily turn out to be a very expensive exercise.
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If you think it's just "colors" then maybe you shoud stop posting.
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If someone can buy something that looks the same, acts the same, feels the same, has the same quality and a lower price, it means YOUR product is over-priced.
Spoken like someone who has never developed a product. It can take many months to design and develop a product. But it can be copied in weeks. That's why we have IP law that lasts a limited time. To allow for companies to recoup their R&D costs before the knockoffs come out. (Though we know some companies abuse that system...)
Come back 100 years ago... (Score:2)
IP law is outdated with modern society.
Patent and copyright alike. They need abolishing ad rebuilding from the ground up.
Come back 100 years ago...
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Both have issues with current implementation. The basic principle is not unsound.
The main complaint with copyright is it's too long; the main complaint with patents is you can get one for stuff that shouldn't be patentable; both have the complaint that it can be used to prevent people from doing something they should be able to do. But there is some truth to "if the creator can't get paid because their stuff's getting copied willy nilly, they're not going to be able to create new stuff".
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Modern society (nor any other time) hasn't changed people. It's simply given them the tools to engage ever more so the behavior they've been doing since the beginning.
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Spoken like someone who has never developed a product.
Or done an honest day's work in any other way.
Re: What do you expect? (Score:2)
Sure. But all that effort is a SUNK COST!
Aside from that, if you want to make something that can knocked off, you should factor that scenario into your business plan before making a decision to move forward.
I want to make little plastic things and charge a lot more money than the unit production cost of those things - someone else can make them and sell them for a lot less - hmmmm - this a good idea? Let me see...
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Bottom line? People pay for product, not your design effort.
You are a moron.
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You're saying patents are worthless to society?
Patents are damaging. (Score:1)
Today, patents are not worthless to society.
Socity has changed, and patents are not adapted any more.
They are really damaging to society and should be abolished altogether.
https://www.thepatentscam.com/ [thepatentscam.com]
This keyboard cap art is a really prefect example of this:
- Not worth the money for a patent application, because too niche, and too small a market and item value.
- patents are not really enforceable anyway for smll iterative changes
- could be target for all sorts of patent trolling.
- blocking innovation for
Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
So what your saying is if you make a nice, safe, charger (for instance) but people buy the knock-off that looks exactly the same but causes fires, the solution is to lower your prices because yours is 'over-engineered'?
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Exactly what the market is for: competition.
If you're overpriced, you should market yourself to sustain your high prices, or lower your prices when not novel any more.
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Uh-huh. You should 'market yourself'. Because of course that can be done for free, and doesn't raise your costs even higher.
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Exactly what the market is for: competition.
If you're overpriced, you should market yourself to sustain your high prices, or lower your prices when not novel any more.
That's not how it works man. Not how any of this works man!
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Competing would them making a unique design and selling that.
This is art theft and counterfeiting.
This is nothing new. This is why IP laws exist; because it is hard to create and easy to copy.
No idea what the solution is, I don't see why the lays in place aren't in effect here;
They just are not being enforced or there is no enforcement mechanism.
It really sucks for innovators and creators.
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So what your saying is if you make a nice, safe, charger (for instance) but people buy the knock-off that looks exactly the same but causes fires, the solution is to lower your prices because yours is 'over-engineered'?
Since I don't have mod points you get my "+1 Totally Gets It" comment. ;-)
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So what your saying is if you make a nice, safe, charger (for instance) but people buy the knock-off that looks exactly the same but causes fires, the solution is to lower your prices because yours is 'over-engineered'?
That's not what parent said at all. A charger that works vs a charger that causes fires does not "act the same" or "ha[ve] the same quality".
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We're talking about clones that deliberately mislead the consumer into thinking it is your product. Customer sees two products that look the same and have the same basic description. Only difference is a very small change in the name, and the price. To the unwary consumer, they are the same product just sold for different prices.
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I could copy and paste your post sure, but that doesn't mean we've put the same effort in. You spent time not only typing it, but you've clearly put years of effort into honing your stupidity to come up with something so incredibly dumb to say.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Funny)
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But did they realize they were stealing, too?
In today's society, theft is established with an accusation, not the fact that you actually stole something.
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