I’m going to sell my Digitakt. And likely sign off on Elektron after this.
I’ve had Digitakt since it came out, and like many people on this forum i’ve been wondering about when “Overbridge” is going to finally get a release candidate.
I have to wonder why Elektron is so unwilling to use us, the community, as an open test bed for overbridge like they do with their hardware. With hardware, we pay top dollar for their devices, and they slowly trickle out fixes to make them usable, essentially treating us like lab rats.
I’m a developer and product designer by profession. I understand scope creep and the crippling loss off objectivity that comes when trying to make a project “perfect”. Overbridge reeks of this to me, I assume elektron has gotten locked into a loop of never being able to sign off on the product because it’s bouncing around in their tiny bubble.
I have to wonder how long they will keep this up before we, the community, realize that we are the victims of bait-and-switch false advertising.
From Wikipedia:
"Bait-and-switch is a deceptive form of advertising or marketing tactic generally used to lure in customers into the store. A company will advertise their product at a very cheap and enticing price which will attract the customers (bait). However, the product the customer seeks is not available for various reasons, such as the company only having a limited quantity of product available for sale which was quickly sold out (switch). After which, the store/company will then try to sell something that is more expensive and valuable than what they originally advertised (upsell). Regardless of the fact that only a small percentage of the shoppers will actually buy the more expensive product, the advertiser using the bait remains to gain profit
Bait advertising is also commonly used in other contexts, for example, in online job advertisements by deceiving the potential candidate about working conditions, pay, or different variables. Airlines may be guilty of “baiting” their potential clients with a bargains, then increase the cost or change the notice to be that of a considerably more costly flight.
Businesses are asked to remember a few guidelines to avoid charges of misleading or deceptive conduct:
- Reasonable timeframe, reasonable quantities - Businesses must supply publicized merchandise or services at the promoted cost for a sensible or expressed timeframe and in sensible or expressed amounts. There is no exact meaning of what is implied by a ‘sensible timeframe’ or ‘sensible amounts’.
- Qualifying statements - General qualifying statements, for example, ‘in store and online now’ could at present still leave a business open to charges of bait advertising if sensible amounts of the publicized item are not accessible.
- Advertising deadlines - Companies need to have good grounds to trust that the merchandise will be accessible
- Rain checks - When, through no shortcoming of its own, a business can’t supply merchandise or services as promoted companies ought to have a framework set up to supply or acquire the supply of the merchandise or benefits at the promoted cost as quickly as time permits.
** Online claims - If a company is an online-based company, it is essential for them to keep everything on their website updated to avoid misleading customers.**
In some countries bait advertising can result in severe penalties."
Sweden’s own marketing act:
"Section 6
Marketing that contravenes good marketing practice under Section 5 is to be regarded as unfair if it appreciably affects or probably affects the recipient’s ability to make a well-founded transaction decision."
I’m sure i’m not the only one on this forum who was affected by the carrot dangling done with overbridge. In my case i knew it wasn’t out yet, but it was supposed to be around in Feb this year so a few months without wasn’t a big deal.
I’m no legal expert, i’m not suggesting action, but what i am saying is that Elektron is just going to keep resting on its rep, and while they make good products, are essentially abusing their user base and maybe we should leave
