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Comment by bpicolo | Hacker News Reader

This sort of thing is just killer in the hobbyist market - think people out there making miniature train towns, very-high-setting-realism RPG campaigns, etc. It's not a billion dollar business, and it doesn't have to be.

There's endless potential for lifestyle businesses in the hobby world. There are people out there doing 6 figures selling artisanal mechanical keyboard keycaps.

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I've been really wanting to get into the artisanal business world as an entrepreneur for a while now, it always seems so full of potential, and I've had good experience on the other side as well (having purchased a hand-made Atreus keyboard from @technomancy). And it fits inline with my philosophy of quality craftsmanship being very important, especially in this age of disposable low-quality goods and services. The hard part is finding something that is pretty low-risk to jump right into. That's part of what drew me to software, because there's almost no costs except what you'd already have at home (electricity bill, computer, rent). So it's just a matter of finding a software niche that's low-risk enough to bootstrap without VC if possible, and in a very small time limit. That's probably why I started making Mac apps 10 years ago and have kept doing so since. Mac apps used to be known for their fine craftsmanship and attention to detail as well as niche market.

Seems like the best entrypoint is being a target customer. Make something you'd want.

We're a bit spoiled in the software world. Startup cost is just non-existent. Most other businesses in history have at least a little bit of associated input capital. But if it's something you want anyway, it's worth a big of dough!

That's what I've always tried to do: make something I use. The most successful example of this is when I made an app that I use on a daily basis (https://github.com/sdegutis/AppGrid) and have for several years straight. But it's so niche and small that nobody was willing to spend money on it, so I open sourced it. But I still think of it as a success because of how dependent I've become on this tool whenever I use a computer.

People totally would have spent money for it. Lots of people struggle with tools for exactly this (I’m currently using Moom but just yesterday was wishing I had a keystroke to shrink a window but didn’t feel motivated enough to crack open my Hammerspoon configuration.)

You should consider selling it on the Mac App Store in addition to it being open source. I think you’d be pleasantly surprised.

I tried to do that, but Apple's rules restrict it because it uses Accessibility API (other similar apps were grandfathered in as they were on the store the rule was made). I also talked with Apple asking for an exception and they said no. So I tried selling it outside the store, but it's hard to market it without spending tons of $$.

I/m not sure who downvoted you or why when you had the sentence about using Show HN, but I think that was a good idea. Of if not Show HN, Ask HN with the history and problems putting it in the appstore you outlined here, and asking people if they see a path to profitability.

I think the second would be more useful and interesting. More people likely to look at it if a good discussion ensues, so you still get exposure, and useful advice from people here.

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll just put it up for sale, make a website for it, hook it up to Stripe or something, and post it as a Show HN. If I post it as an Ask HN, the mods may not allow a Show HN about the same topic any time soon afterwards, and reasonably so.

Looks like a good utility. I've been using Spectacle to do this sort of thing. One small suggestion: add a .gif to your Github README showing off AppGrid in action.

Good idea, just added one. Thanks.

First off, thank you so much for the work you did on mjolnir and related projects. Mjolnir completely changed how I used my mac and I used it intensively every day for years until I recently switched to hammerspoon.

But, I didn't (and wouldn't) pay for it as a product. I did donate a coffee or two a while back, but I think in general window managers will always be a hard sell since all it takes is another bored programmer to open source a clone and you're kinda sunk. On top of that window managers have always been a free/FOSS thing, and changing that would probably require offering a feature that is so compelling people will overlook using closed source software/payware. Last, customization/scripting is a hard requirement for most window manager users, and without the source the vast majority of people will refuse to even invest the time to switch.

While I personally hate the trend, the only way to monetize would probably offer some sort of cloud based feature that requires a subscription. I think if you did it honestly, offered real value, and provided a self-hosted option for sticks in the mud (that won't give you money, but will evangelize for you if you keep things libre) you could probably carve out a decent living. Either that or offering support to enterprises who want to use your tool, but that comes with its own devils.

Anywho, just my two cents. Thanks again for all your hard work, I know it didn't pay off how you wanted financially but the tools you created have huge userbases that use your code every day hundreds of times a day. At the very least I'd hope having that on your resume has helped you find a good gig somewhere, and if not I'd suggest posting on here in a hiring thread or finding a good head hunter who can translate that experience into a well paying gig.

Thanks, I appreciate it. And my thinking lines up with yours, that nobody will realistically pay for this app, which is why my plan is to add a buy-me-a-beer (donate) button into the app, and keep it open sourced, and submit it here next Tuesday, since I hear that's the best day for a Show HN.

I would have totally used this as I had the same issue as well and tried multiple different apps before settling in to BetterTouchTool to basically cover all the shortcuts and much more. I got in back when it was in Beta and still paid for it afterwards, because of continued support/development.

The other thing to think about if you make this a paid app is the price point and utility. The one thing I dislike about a lot of Mac Apps like this, which provide some simple functionality, end up discontinuing development if there isn't much revenue or if the developer gets busy. So when the OS updates or something breaks or it doesn't work with a new model/hardware changes (Ex: Touchbar), there's no support or updates. (This is something that I factor in, looking at what other things the developer has done or supported in the past, based on the price point for the app ($1 vs $10 etc)

Exactly! The only exception is if you are building a disruptive idea like Uber or Airbnb that creates a market. It's not something anyone wants per se until they see that it can actually be a part of their lives. For ex, Travis Kalanick doesn't really drive an Uber right? But he created a market where people could actually start being their own taxis.

But for people in the hobby of making small apps and tools (like myself) then making something I want, then selling it for $0.99, then having 1 million people buying it is already a lot of dough. Not to mention 1 million people worldwide is a drop in the bucket.

I thought Travis really did want to use the limo(s) himself. Wasn't shared access to high-end limos the original idea? And didn't the Airbnb founders put the literal Ur-airbed in their own house?

I think you are right that there are exceptions to the rule, but those seem to follow the rule to some degree.

Circa 2008, I had a terrible commute, but a sometime-carpool that made it bearable. I dreamed of an app that would pair/triple up drivers and riders based on homes, destinations, and timing. Uber isn't quite that, but it's conceivable that someone could want such a thing.

There's a whole industry selling real $2 bills for more than face value

https://smile.amazon.com/Two-Dollar-Bill-Pack-Bills/dp/B01N2...

I once bought a sheet of uncut $2 bills from BEP [1]. They go for much more than a face value, but it was a nice souvenir from America.

[1] https://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/2currencysheetsbeptestshee...

I find that really strange because yesterday I literally walked out of my bank with 50 brand new $2 bills.

For some people, time is money. So the convenience of avoiding a bank branch visit is worth paying a little more for the bills.

What do people do with them? Store them in mint condition in hope of creating collectors items in the future?

My dad takes clients out to lunch a few times a week. He always tips the server with $2 bills. Every server on his side of town remembers him, and his favorite drinks, meals, etc. (and really impresses the clients!)

When I used to work as a valet it was a big deal every time we got a $2 bill in tip. When we were splitting the tip we would always ask if any of the new guys had never gotten one before and make sure they got one.

There was a factory in a town somewhere that paid all its workers' bonuses in $2 bills so that the town could see the effect that the factory had on the local economy.

Give them to friends and kids, see them smile.

Also good for tipping.

Back when $2 used to be a good tip, but now? Do you fork over 5 of them?

Yes, you would use more than one $2-bill to tip them $10.

My son is in kindergarten and one of his Vietnamese classmates gave everyone a red envelope with a $2 in it for Lunar New Year. I have also received a similar gift from a Chinese co-worker, so maybe that's where some are going?

I love Woz's trick of having uncut sheets perforated and tearing them off for tips.

My recollection of the story is that he would laminate them into "tablets" with rubber cement and then tear off the top sheet(s) to make a payment. I think I have that story bookmarked somewhere.

EDIT: I'm not sure where the "printing" part of this story comes into play but it looks like his tablets do indeed have multiple bills per sheet in addition to being laminated at the top. (https://hackaday.com/2012/08/03/woz-prints-and-spend-his-own...)

You can buy uncut sheets of bills directly from the US mint. I got a sheet of 12x $1 bills when I visited DC as a child.

See here: https://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/1currencysheets.aspx

Right ... but I suspect his local printer was involved in turning them into a tablet of a given size rather than actually printing the bills.

Yep, he got a print shop to apply rubber cement and perforate the sheets.

Does anyone know how is that not illegal?

Even if they meet the required standards I thought only the government was allowed to print bills.

Does anyone have any links or references to what Woz is saying?

He's pulling the host's leg; the "high quality print shop" he buys them from is the Bureau of Printing and Engraving [1].

Of course, when you're interviewing a prankster about pranks, you've got to expect that sort of thing :)

[1] http://archive.woz.org/letters/general/78.html

Aha!

That makes perfect sense. And of course I fell for it...

Thanks!

I live in a rural mountain town in North Central Washington and the local IGA always gives crisp 2 dollar bills as change when you pay cash. Not sure why they do but it's pretty neat.

What is a "local IGA"?

IGA is a grocery store chain. Well, actually it's a franchise where each store has the IGA brand but it is individually owned and operated. They tend to be popular in smaller towns where a local resident owns and runs the store.

There aren't any near where I live, but I've seen them a lot when traveling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGA_(supermarkets)

Thanks!

I thought it was an accronym.

I believe Steve Wozniak was/is a $2 bill fan. As far as I can remember he just ordered them at the bank.

Actually it's better than that; he buys uncut sheets of bills and pulls various pranks with them. He ends up paying more than $2 per bill, so it's mainly just to weird people out.

He got sheets of 4 perforated and then bound with a gum binding (like a pad of paper). He then whips out the book and pulls a $2 off of the perforation.

He'll carry larger sheets folded up and then cut a bill out with scissors in front of the person he is paying it to. Apparently he got the secret service called on him once.

http://archive.woz.org/letters/general/78.html

[edit]

If you want to buy uncut bills you can yourself, but there's about a 50% markup on even the largest sheets:

https://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/2currencysheetsbeptestshee...

note to self: become rich enough to buy money

...to buy expensive money

sheets use to be at cost with free shipping, but the dang card churners killed everything related to this site.

They would buy monsterboxes of coins of various monies on credit cards and turn them back into the bank and pay the bill for perks.

They eventually changed the Merchant category codes to cash advance, and then raised the prices. :-(

At least the url is self descriptive.

Is the government allowed to make money (more than its value) by selling money?

I recall a story told to me many years back of him at a (U2?) concert where he was up in the upper deck. He would make a paper airplane out of the $2 bill and throw it. He would watch it with binoculars to see where it landed and the confusion on the person’s face when there is a bill stuck in their hair.

That looks like nothing but thinly-disguised money laundering. Hack an Amazon account, buy some cash, repeat. Why else would someone buy $20 for $32?

Yep hacking an account and giving your real mailing address and card information complete with a paper trail is definitely how you launder.

Not to mention it's somewhat de-laundering: you start with money in a bank or credit on a card and end up with hard to spend cash. Hard to spend as in, you can't really pay your mortgage or buy a car with $2 bills.

Why not? My auto and hoke loan is through my credit union. I can walk in any branch and make a cash payment on any of my loans. I don't even have to verify I own the accounts.

You will attract AML attention if this goes over the $10k threshold for any one transaction (or near it in some cases).

Who has a mortgage or car payment that is in excess of $10k per month?

(tangent) An old friend of mine claimed that he could get very low-ball offers accepted for used cars by showing up with his entire bid in hundred dollar bills in cash, he said that people were so mesmerized by the sight of literal stacks of currency that they would accept lower offers than they would for other "cash" offers that were otherwise some form of bank transfer.

Alternate explanation: payment in bills facilitates the salesman cheating his boss. The salesman writes up two bills of sale: one to you for the cash amount received, one to the dealership for the minimum price he can get away with. The difference goes in his pocket.

Hmmmm.

This is useful.

San Franciscans :-)

Anybody who bought a house for more than (napkin) $1.5MM? Lots of those out there.

Anybody who borrowed that much to buy a house, anyway.

People with a need to launder money?

There is a very real novelty factor of an uncut sheet. I have one and didn't mind paying the premium. Also, I'm pretty sure the U.S. Government doesn't need help laundering money. They sell them at a premium direct

I would say it's the other way around: you sell some ill-gotten cash, which is then sitting on a legal account.

Hacking an amazon count and buying cash isn't money laundering. You could just buy stuff on amazon and skip the cash middleman.

Because $2 dollar bills are rare to find and get in bulk; iirc if you buy rolls of change at a bank (for change, e.g. if you need it for your shop) you also pay a bit more than the face value of the currency.

I "buy" rolls of change at the bank constantly. I also turn in unrolled change, which they count for me. (I own machines that take quarters)

I've never paid a penny extra for the rolls, and my bank does the coin-counting for free as well.

I have never in my life heard of paying extra for rolled coins. In fact, there's a whole subreddit devoted to people who buy rolls of coins and then hunt through them looking for old (silver) coins. They turn the coins back in later, at a different bank/location. This would likely not be a viable hobby if there was any upcharge.

In my local bank (Germany) I get up to 2 rolls of any denomination for free, per day. I can also cash in loose coins (to my account) at an automatic counting machine (but not many branches have them). For people who don't have an account at this bank, iirc there's some kind of fee for getting rolled coins, might be in the ballpark of 50ct per roll or something.

Neither are true. I get fresh straps of $2 bills all the time. They are still printed.

This is absolutely untrue, I get cash of all denominations for my business at the bank all the time, including $2 bills. They usually have to pop into the vault to get some since there's not a lot of call for them, but they're by no means impossible or cost extra to get.

This boggles my mind. It's even worse than that psychology experiment where they auction off $20 bills. (Often for more than $20.)

That's called a "dollar auction" and it works because the rules are such that the 2nd highest bid still has to pay the money they bid, even though they won't get the prize. Given that incentive structure, it is cheaper for you to pay $21 for a $20 (and lose $1), rather than being the 2nd higher bid at $19, and lose the entire $19.

It is meant as an introduction to other occurrences in peoples lives, where they invest something that they will lose if they abandon the activity. Being on hold is one such example, where you lose the time you've invested in being on hold, if you give up and hang up the call before it's connected. Thus you end up in a situation where you are somewhat trapped.

Yes, and you can get them in tear-out books for a huge markup.[1] That idea is old; it was supposedly created by the marketing director of Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey, mid 20th century.

[1] https://www.moneypads.com/products.html

> think people out there making miniature train towns, very-high-setting-realism RPG campaigns, etc.

It'd be a poor fit for miniature train towns, the scale is too large for them. The largest is G which is 1:22.5 (approx 8 inches high) and the most popular is HO (1:87.1). HO runs on a 16.5mm track so the blocks are about as wide as a train track on their shortest dimensions.

Overall it's kind of an awkward scale for any hobby miniatures.

Yeah, I only intended that as an example of the sorts of communities where realistic miniature-things are desirable. You could definitely produce different scales for these sorts of things to match.

The live steam hobby commonly works in 1:8 and 1:5, sometimes even 1:4... and that's just the folks on 7.5" gauge track. Tilden Park has a RR running on 15" gauge. It's a beast.

Oh yeah I've seen those. Never really seen them talked about in the same category as the rest of the model railway world though. Seems like it still kind of leaves these mini materials in an awkward position at 1:12 scale so they're too large for traditional model railways and too small for these live steam guys.

1:12 is a common action figure size though. Maybe it'd make interesting materials for that.

> very-high-setting-realism RPG campaigns,

RPG miniatures are typically 1/64 (25mm) to 1/58 (28mm); these items are 1/12 scale. There are display miniatures around that scale, but they are way too big for RPG or wargame minis.

I have to disagree. Having one mini cinder block = 5 properly scaled cinder blocks (approximately) is close enough. You just use 1-3 instead of 5-15 to build the appropriately sized walls.

Ah, I realize the “they” in the last sentence is potentially ambiguous; I was saying that the construction pieces aren't in scale with RPG miniatures but with display miniatures that are much larger. I actually agree that the cinder blocks and bricks could still be useful—though “high realism” would probably prefer alternate materials in-scale to out-of-scale but realistic materials; visual realism seems to usually be the priority for high realism.

I still remember one of the first HN stories that caught my eye was the developer who created bingo cards and was making a good living selling his cards online and to bingo parlors.

He did the same thing. Found a niche industry which needed this service and he was doing well all by himself with nearly zero overhead.

It really made me start looking at very small niches for opportunities since there's already a ton of people trying to disrupt large entrenched technologies.

In those days, SEO was fairly trivial. You could easily rank well for a keyphrase with a matching domain or get longtail hits with a script that dynamically built pages. It's much, much harder now.

At one point in that era, I ranked top two in Australia for "make money" with one page about AdSense on an otherwise unrelated site. I had another site that took half a day to build, and involved no upkeep, making similar money to Patrick's BCC. I stupidly let it (and other sites) languish and it was slowly overtaken by competitors and SEO changes.

This would be https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=patio11

I think you're referencing bingocardcreator.com, which made software for diy bingo cards. Also it never made a living, let alone a good living. It ended up selling for low 5 digits IIRC.

Well maybe that makes it all the more impressive because it got him notarity in a community which he parlayed into a great job with a unicorn startup company.

Nevertheless 25.000 to 40.000,- USD profits per year without spending a lot of time on it sounds nice.

Only in SV is $40,000 profit not making a living.

Yep - and a lot of this stuff is nicely high margin. I've bought tiny sandbags, 32mm circles that look like zen gardens, and a ton of other stuff for my hobby. There's tons of small shops out there making neat hobby materials.

I always thought the people who use "lifestyle business" as a pejorative were missing out.

>There are people out there doing 6 figures selling artisanal mechanical keyboard keycaps

Source?

The actual numbers would definitely be a guess out of thin air, but the mechanical keyboard community is pretty massive and spends a bunch of money on this stuff.

Here's a drop that is currently at 88k revenue for massdrop: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-redsuns-gmk-red-samu...

638 purchases @ 139.99/set

Somebody has dropped 1k on a single custom made key on the secondary market. https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/wiki/keyboard_t...

The gaming market has produced all sorts of hobbyist businesses, and that's a market actually big enough to see a few potentially billion dollar businesses. I'm not entirely sure whether something like DXRacer[0] would fall into line of a hobbyist/enthusiast business but it feels like it should to me (and I'm mentioning it because it feels like a larger sort of hobbyist business). It's definitely in that realm in terms of having a pretty specific target market and a relatively higher price point.

[0] https://www.dxracer.com/

I'm one of those people who admittedly spend way too much money on keyboards :) I don't have any artesian keycaps, but I have bough aftermarket (?) keycaps that uses plastic of a higher quality. You can tell the difference.

There are also people in the DIY mechanical keyboard market selling circuit boards, plates, cases, etc... Again, it's a really niche market, but people are willing to spend a lot more money at a hobbyist/enthusiast level.

I'm there too, I have 4 $100+ keyboards now, and 1 of them is an "ortholinear" style (keys are in a perfect grid) that I built from a kit and had custom keycaps printed with names of programs on them. With some semi-custom software I use it like a physical "whole computer" shortcut pad.

I now have a button that can launch a terminal window, a button that launches HN, one that does a git pull on all my current projects, etc...

Like you said, it's a niche market, but it's one where most people are happy to pay the higher prices for something more tailored to their needs, and it's a rare "physical" area where a guy in his garage can compete with big companies.

I just recently got a new 3d printer, and I think after I get it more tuned I will be able to print fairly good quality keycaps. If they are good enough, I might try selling custom made-to-order keycaps if there is any interest.

Where can you get custom printing on keycaps? I have an Ergodox but what I really can't get used to (even after 2 years of full time use) is the lack of labeling for the special keys. I've looked for years for ways to do custom printing or labeling but all methods I found suck.

WASDkeyboards offers printed singles in multiple ways. They aren't the best quality (they are UV coated ABS, I used their keycaps on another keyboard and the coating started to wear through after about a year of daily use, the text is still fine though), but they are the king of custom printing right now in my opinion.

You can go to [0] to get just text on a keycap with a fairly easy web-ui to describe the text, position, and size you want it.

Or you can take it entirely into your own hands and go to [1] to give them a vector file that they will custom print on to the keys.

They also offer that service in a "full keyboard set" option [2], so you don't need to do a ton of keys individually if you want to do the whole keyboard (although the full sets most likely won't fit your profile, but they do fit a good number of more standard keyboard layouts)

Again, they aren't the best quality, but they do a good job, and they take care of their customers. Plus the amount of customization you can do is pretty fucking insane. [3] is always my go-to example for just how customizable they are. Not only full color printing, but also individual key plastic color selection.

[0] http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/printed-keyc...

[1] http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/printed-keyc...

[2] http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/keycap-set/1...

[3] https://www.flickr.com/photos/wasdkeyboards/28965975050/

roel_v just buy some right sized blanks in your profile and use a paint pen to label them, or get some relegendable caps in your profile and make little paper labels.

That or just dump the ergodox when you realize that it's just a pale sad imitation of a kinesis advantage.

I am not parent commenter but you can pry my ErgoDox EZ Shine from my cold dead hands.

The one you mentioned doesn’t even look pretty. ErgoDox EZ Shine is wonderful both in use and in how it looks!

>I don't have any artesian keycaps

Artisanal. Artesian means related to a special type of water wells :-)

`Bespoke` in the marketing community.

‘Artisan’ in the MK community.

That set is actually produced by GMK, a large-ish German company [0]. There is a designer who gets a cut (I'm not sure the percentage off the top of my head), but it's almost definitely not enough to live off of.

[0] https://www.gmk-electronic-design.de/en.html

I don't have a source, but I wouldn't be surprised. I used to make custom fighting sticks (I even designed the firmware, which for me was the most fun part) and sold them north of $300 each. They were gone really fast. I didn't continue because it was time consuming and we just had a son :)

Why did your fighting sticks have firmware?

Fighting sticks - like gamepads for fighting games, maybe?

https://www.frys.com/product/8805412

Oh... it's basically a joystick. Fight stick -> arcade like joystick that is usually used on fighting games.

The firmware was basically usb-hid to behave like either joystick or keyboard. It also had some fancy de-bouncing code for the buttons.

“Fightsticks” - joysticks for fighting games - often have the ability to program macros into their buttons, so as to make it easier to pull off the lengthy input sequences these games are built around.

Aren't all sticks made out of firmware?

But I, too, am very curious to hear the answer.

I mean it isn't like any of these makers are sharing their tax returns or anything, but for example eat_the_food is the designer and manufacturer behind "Nightcaps" [0]. He ran an event called "Poisoned summer" where he had 80 days of "micro batch" sales, where each sale was for somewhere between one and fifteen or so caps, priced between $60-80 each. Most days the sale was only open for about one minute, and in that minute he would have hundreds of entries to randomly draw "winners" from, and then the winners would get to buy the keycaps. I'm pretty sure he hit six figures in sales on those 80 days of sales alone, and those were not his only sales throughout the year. He isn't even making keycaps full-time yet, he still has a day job.

Several other members of the mechanical keyboard community (especially in the artisan keycap subsection of the community) have managed to turn their keyboard hobby into a full-time job and make a pretty decent living out of it.

[0] https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=79513.0

Most of these keycap sets are kinda pricey, and this company is apparently doing pretty well.

https://pimpmykeyboard.com/

This is the customer facing business for a plastics factory that specializes in keycaps called Signature Plastics. They've been one of two manufacturers of note in the custom keycap group buys of the last little while (GMK in germany being the other). Their production backlog right now is apparently pretty long.

This kind of thing seems perfect for group buys like massdrop, etc. Low production runs of these have got to be expensive. after all, they need to create the design, molds, form them, QA (hopefully), etc. Honestly that much money for some little plastic squares kinda makes me do a double-take, even though I realize why they cost what they do.

Most of the time there aren't that many custom molds (they are expensive!). There are generally only a few ways caps get made. Most expensive is "Double Shot", two separate colors of plastic is used, first the legend is molded in one color (kinda built on a grid of plastic) then it's placed in the full keycap mold and the "background" plastic is shot into the mold filling all the empty space. The legends on these keycaps obviously cannot fade or wear off. Other methods include "pad printing", the legends are painted on (with a coat of sealent) (if you look at your caps and kinda see a shimmer around your legends, it's probably pad printed). Pad printed legends can be worn off over time. Finally dye-sublimation, a printing method that penetrates the plastic a few nanometers. These legends generally don't wear off ( The popular Apple Extended II keyboard is dyesubbed, I have one that I used for several years on a quadra then converted for use with usb and the legends are still sharp, though the plastic has yellowed ), however dyesub can only create legends that are darker than the keycap plastic.

The companies that make keycaps have molds for the profiles they make. GMK has the original Cherry molds (medium height caps with cylindrical indentions, Signature Plastics has a few profiles including Retro looking SA (Tall caps with spherical indentations, each row a different sculpt that gives it a gentle dish when looked at from the side), DSA (flat profile, each row the same with a spherical indentation), DSS (A medium profile generally dished with spherical indentation, DCS (a medium profile with cylindrical indentation), and G20 (a flat profile with no indentation).

So generally when you put together a custom keycap set, you pick a profile, if you want double shot legends there might be some extra molds to make, but those are pretty pricy (I think I heard about 6k a pop). If you go with dyesub you have a lot of legend freedom, but you are limited to dark legends on lighter caps.

Most expensive is "Double Shot", two separate colors of plastic is used, first the legend is molded in one color (kinda built on a grid of plastic) then it's placed in the full keycap mold and the "background" plastic is shot into the mold filling all the empty space. The legends on these keycaps obviously cannot fade or wear off.

Yes. HP calculators had that.

There's another way for small volume. Laser engrave the legend with a CNC laser cutter. Then brush on laser marking powder, which is very similar to printer toner. Rerun the engraving pass at very low power, hitting the same spots just engraved. Power has to be low, just enough to melt and seal the toner, not vaporize it. Then brush off any remaining powder. This is good for cover plates with legends, signs, and such. The letters are slightly below surface level, so they tend not to wear off too fast.

How are they not getting replaced by chinese manufacturers? From a naive point of view those don't seem to hard to manufacture.

They are, but from the low end. Often the quality is not quite there: the colors are off, the legends and not properly aligned, the plastic is warped, the keys not quite aligned, and so on. It is probably because the production runs are so small that the only way to make a decent profit is to order a blind production run and ship it out no matter what it looks like. Higher-quality low-cost options are starting to appear as this new market matures.

In contrast, the group buys in the enthusiast community are works of love, with multiple rounds of checks and adjustments to get it right. Sometimes facilitators like Massdrop force projects out the door because of cost even though the creator of the design wants to do more rounds of tweaking are necessary, and it shows. (Example: the recent /dev/tty keycap set.)

They are, XDA keycap form factor is from a Chinese factory IIRC and is kinda derivative of DSA caps which comes out of Signature Plastics.

Seems to be quality issues with every XDA run so far though. Keyboard fanatics drop a good amount of money on these sets so quality is extremely important in such a small and passionate market.

Jelly Key makes artisan keycaps by hand. They are based in Vietnam.

https://www.jellykey.com/

Some are, some aren't (e.g. KeyCool). Lots of these have low production counts.

Maxkey, Tai Hao and others in the chinese market are making their presence felt, but generally the quality just isn't there for the enthusiast community.

Tai Hao is really coming into their own with the Cubic keycap profile. They're doing for keycaps what Kailh is doing for switches.

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