Hacker News Reader

Comment by dannyw | Hacker News Reader

That experience is frustrating for sure, but for what it's worth, they basically sell these at cost with very little mark up.

It's a store for hackers; it's not meant to be a consumer shop. I think they even warn you to not buy if you expect returns or customer service.

View on HN

So add a very little bit more mark up to ship it correctly and to account for some percentage of returns due to shipping damage.

The problem is that this amounts to a fantasy they wish were a thing. You aren't legally allowed to ship products to consumers broken and keep their money.

They have a bright red notice on the product page begging consumers not to order it. Doing it regardless and demanding it to be treated like an ordinary customer interaction makes sure that this approach will be less likely to be repeated in the future.

I do not understand why somebody would do such a thing consciously. We have the situation that somebody wants to distribute the hardware at cost for development. And a big group of people who want exactly this deal. Why is there a need on a personal level to basically sabotage this? Or what am i missing that doesnt make this behavior really dickish?

edit: And again, i am not talking about people who misunderstood what exactly was offered here. That absolutly shouldnt happen. I just dont understand why somebody would do this consciously.

I think the idea is to create a minimum standard of service, so people have the same base expecations. If businesses started selling a lower-priced with zero-guarantees model (which is essentially gambling), it will become a race to the bottom with an abundance of scammers. It would be hard for users to tell if a certain price point means 20% chance of dead-on-arrival, or 80%.

But these issues only occur at scale. As long as PinePhone is able to keep their zero-guarantees model under the radar, maybe it's fine

I absolutely understand the argument when it comes to ordinary commercial interactions. This isnt supposed to be one though. Its the solution to the problem how you can get hardware to developers as cheap as possible. I do not understand why anyone would insert themselves into this interaction.

even if what you say is true, it should have been possible to properly wrap the package so that the phone inside doesn't get damaged. that doesn't cost to much. and if they can't cover the risk of damage with money back, they could offer insurance for that instead. i'd gladly pay a bit extra.

Not going to argue on that. I am just very confused by the sentiment of people ordering something as if it was a consumer product despite knowing the only reason they can get one is because they are using the mechanism for developers to get hardware at cost. Which means the obvious solution is stricter screening of who can get one.

Developers can’t use broken hardware. The packaging doesn’t have to be fancy, but it does have to be secure enough that the phone arrives undamaged. Otherwise no development can be done. The OP is not unreasonable for wanting a physically unbroken product, sold at cost or not.

That just brings us back to not properly communicating or understanding the terms of the interaction. If you get it at cost and the shipping company wont cover the damage, somebody will. In this case the recipient will cover shipping to the service center and pine will cover the actual repairs. Thats the deal. Not understanding it is one thing, doing so and demand otherwise later another.

edit: again, not defending their packaging skills here.

The thing is nobody cares whatsoever what they communicate because you just can't legally do that most places. You can write depending on mood box may contain poo, dead rabbits, or live bobcat instead of phone and when you deliver anything but what the user paid for intact and functional their bank is going to take their money back and whomever is taking payments for you may opt to stop doing so if it happens too much.

Ultimately "YOU CAN'T DO THAT" just doesn't mean you CAN do that as long as the letters are big enough bold enough or red enough. It means YOU CAN'T DO THAT.

You cannot offer goods that don't work on a website where you anticipate people paying with their paycal mastercard visa or amex and expect them not to exercise terms that must exist by law because the alternative to someone doing the easy thing and yoinking their money relatively cheaply back over the wire isn't the incompetent OEM keeping the money its waiting for a very expensive lawsuit wherein the customer takes back not only their $99 but the $5000 it cost them to collect their $99. If enough people do that ultimately they ruin you and people come to take all your tinker toys and auction them to pay your debts.

The actual alternative is to have an actual signed contract with prospective "developers" for access to equipment. There isn't a blurb you can put on a website that will serve.

A proper way to handle this is to charge a little bit extra, and use that money to process the broken devices.

> but for what it's worth, they basically sell these at cost with very little mark up.

That's worth nothing.

> it's not meant to be a consumer shop. I think they even warn you to not buy if you expect returns or customer service.

Reminds me of: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/24/the-adventures...

"Wow! I didn't know you could even do that."

That’s not an excuse. In fact, smaller hacker shops more often than not provide a better experience than most ‘consumer’ shops; and certainly better than the average massive corporation.

It’s the kind of place you can maybe talk to an actual human.

It’s not the kind of place where you break your Credit Card Merchant’s rules and refuse refunds on items poorly packaged and broken on arrival.

After reading OP’s comment, I will never be ordering from this company, and I was highly considering it.

selling things at-cost or whatever is no excuse for shoddy packing methods

Reply on news.ycombinator.com