Drop/Massdrop had been on the way out for many years, I don't get the impression that they ever truly recovered from the transition away from the "group buy for anything" model. They were probably just barely kept afloat by the audiophile gear and keyboards.
Agreed. As someone who spent thousands of dollars at early Massdrop, when they switched to 'basically just a store' + their branded products the goods weren't as appealing and I eventually just stopped visiting. And that makes sense if you think about it: if a group buy gets fully funded people obviously want it.
They ended up having a lot of non-group buy things like extremely esoteric keycaps probably only a couple dozen people on earth are willing to spend money on.
Sad to see it go, but it had degraded significantly from the Massdrop era. It used to be a place to get a decent discount on pre-orders from good to great brands, but it slowly became nothing but second rate computer accessories.
I still have most of the things I bought from Massdrop - pocket knife, leather belt, headphones, etc. Those products lasted.
Massdrop was interesting, as a place to get stuff you couldn't get elsewhere easily (even if I never bought something there, I considered it multiple times and I think I had some things on my wait list). Is there already something like a successor platform? Drop.com as a site for branded corsair gear is completely useless.
For keyboards specifically, there are still community run group buys happening on the geekhack forum.
It's both a lot more interesting and a lot more risky than Massdrop used to be in the sense that there is lots of stuff that even the old Massdrop never would have offered but you're sending a random person on the internet money (sometimes hundreds of dollars) and hoping to receive a product many months later. They have added a "vendor trust" program in recent years to better help inform buyers but there is always risk.
It's product specific rather than brand specific, I suggest looking around on various subreddits like r/MouseReview or r/mechanicalkeyboards for example.
>Starting our next chapter, drop.com will become a hub for our collaborations with truly exciting titles—from The Lord of the Rings™ [...], and more—across the full CORSAIR family of brands.
I think I got a really cool wallet and notebook from Hand & Sew through Massdrop many years ago. The wallet is long gone but the notebook is still around with a wonderful patina. It used to be a really cool site for unique items. I stopped using it when they had a falling out with Input Club and it seems like they've just gone downhill since then.
Unfortunate, but as others point out, quality was on the decline for a while now. That said, I use their iteration of Holy Pandas on every keyboard I can. Wish I had hoarded some when they were still available.
I don’t know if it was just me but I had bad luck with my holy pandas from them. I build 3 different boards using them and they all started having issues within a few months of use. Double bboounce, and keys nt htting. This was several years ago mind you, so maybe they eventually did get the quirks worked out, but by then I’d gotten over the custom board hobby.
That was a bad acquisition and their parent company is now in a bind, but I don't see a world where they can't sell it somewhere. Hopefully it doesn't end up in private equity hell because the 600/650 line is legendary and the HDB 630 is a true leap forward.
Senheiser's CONSUMER side of the buisness is basically dead. Senheiser still makes headphones and such with the focus more on business/production products
According to Crunchbase, Massdrop raised ~92 MM through their series C, and then another ~40 MM in debt over the last couple years.
There is no way that MassDrop was ever going to justify that kind of capital investment. VC is such an inefficient and frankly delusional form of capital deployment at this point -- they have no idea what they're doing. It ironically looks a lot like central planning, where the VCs themselves invest with the intention of picking the winners and losers themselves.
This company should've bootstrapped and remained small-and-manageable. Not every business, not even most businesses, should raise money with the intention of becoming a "unicorn," it is nonsensical and this model has a lot of deleterious effects for our society, namely and most obviously enshittification when the outcome doesn't justify the investment.
> VC is such an inefficient and frankly delusional form of capital deployment
Can you suggest other saner forms? For example, having experts pick, government pick, or only one single debt instruments all have problems with the kinds of investments VC funds, not to mention that they also have their share of ludicrous and bad investments.
Also please suggest how you’d stop VC as is at its core a private investment club - you and other investors get together to invest capital into a profitable but risky venture. The only way to stop it would be to either ban private capital or to ban coordination of capital which on net ends up significantly worse.
1. Large firms investing in early r&d instead of aquisition.
2. Its a symptom of decades of poor economic policy rewarding speculation, to a scale that impacts society by disencentivizing stable investments that benefit humanity. Main lever causing this is through Federal reserve poor policy since 200
Large firms investing in early r&d happens regardless. It does not explain how you build new business on an idea you can’t convince large org politics to try.
It’s also what Xerox and Bell labs were doing in the 70s and what Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft etc are doing today but it took smaller more nimble players to actually do anything with the research. Case in point: transformers came from Google.
Sure I agree and good points. But my view is moreso in the scale of VC operations being a symptom of excess speculation, and society would be better off with stable investments. They are poor stewards of capital, and subsidized by the federal reserve.
Drop/Massdrop had been on the way out for many years, I don't get the impression that they ever truly recovered from the transition away from the "group buy for anything" model. They were probably just barely kept afloat by the audiophile gear and keyboards.
Agreed. As someone who spent thousands of dollars at early Massdrop, when they switched to 'basically just a store' + their branded products the goods weren't as appealing and I eventually just stopped visiting. And that makes sense if you think about it: if a group buy gets fully funded people obviously want it.
They ended up having a lot of non-group buy things like extremely esoteric keycaps probably only a couple dozen people on earth are willing to spend money on.
The business of demand aggregation has been replaced by Temu, where the consumer data is worth more than the average item.
Sad to see it go, but it had degraded significantly from the Massdrop era. It used to be a place to get a decent discount on pre-orders from good to great brands, but it slowly became nothing but second rate computer accessories.
I still have most of the things I bought from Massdrop - pocket knife, leather belt, headphones, etc. Those products lasted.
Same, still use my pocket knife that I bought off Massdrop 12 years ago.
They basically had a clearance sale on MT3 keycaps in the last week, I couldn't resist picking some up.
Massdrop was interesting, as a place to get stuff you couldn't get elsewhere easily (even if I never bought something there, I considered it multiple times and I think I had some things on my wait list). Is there already something like a successor platform? Drop.com as a site for branded corsair gear is completely useless.
> Is there already something like a successor platform?
I too would like to know. I bought many keyboard build kits from massdrop back in the day as well as my terrific Sennheiser headphones.
For keyboards specifically, there are still community run group buys happening on the geekhack forum.
It's both a lot more interesting and a lot more risky than Massdrop used to be in the sense that there is lots of stuff that even the old Massdrop never would have offered but you're sending a random person on the internet money (sometimes hundreds of dollars) and hoping to receive a product many months later. They have added a "vendor trust" program in recent years to better help inform buyers but there is always risk.
In other words they’ve shut it down, and are going to use the brand recognition to hawk as much low quality gaming merch as they can.
Which brands do you usually recommend for desktop/laptop related accessories?
It's product specific rather than brand specific, I suggest looking around on various subreddits like r/MouseReview or r/mechanicalkeyboards for example.
Just like Gamestop!
>Starting our next chapter, drop.com will become a hub for our collaborations with truly exciting titles—from The Lord of the Rings™ [...], and more—across the full CORSAIR family of brands.
Gandalf wept...
I think I got a really cool wallet and notebook from Hand & Sew through Massdrop many years ago. The wallet is long gone but the notebook is still around with a wonderful patina. It used to be a really cool site for unique items. I stopped using it when they had a falling out with Input Club and it seems like they've just gone downhill since then.
Bought my ergoxdoxen from them when they were just starting out.
They even sent me a gift box because my blog post about the keyboard had driven so much traffic. It had a CST mouse in it (among other things).
Still using the mouse.
Nowadays you can buy awesome small batch keyboards from small vendors.
Do you have a recommended small vendor? I am on the look out for some new switches!
Unfortunate, but as others point out, quality was on the decline for a while now. That said, I use their iteration of Holy Pandas on every keyboard I can. Wish I had hoarded some when they were still available.
I don’t know if it was just me but I had bad luck with my holy pandas from them. I build 3 different boards using them and they all started having issues within a few months of use. Double bboounce, and keys nt htting. This was several years ago mind you, so maybe they eventually did get the quirks worked out, but by then I’d gotten over the custom board hobby.
Well, this is disappointing. They were my goto site for keyboards. :/
I read this twice thinking it was an April fools joke I wasn’t getting.
Good thing I stockpiled on Planck boards. All good things have an end I guess.
Saw this coming a mile away. Brand was completely ruined after several debacles.
this is terrible, imho. defeats the purpose of the platform. i'm sad for 6XX series headphones :c
Sennheiser is basically dead too.
https://www.headphonesty.com/2026/03/sennheiser-officially-d...
That's a bummer. I was just wondering where my HD 280s went (did I sell them when I emigrated?).
Got a source that isn't ai slop?
The first line of the linked article contains a link to Sonova's statement (Sennheisers new owner).
It's actually much worse than the linked article though, since it's corporate BS style AI generated slop.
https://www.sonova.com/en/sonova-presents-renewed-strategy-e...
That was a bad acquisition and their parent company is now in a bind, but I don't see a world where they can't sell it somewhere. Hopefully it doesn't end up in private equity hell because the 600/650 line is legendary and the HDB 630 is a true leap forward.
Senheiser's CONSUMER side of the buisness is basically dead. Senheiser still makes headphones and such with the focus more on business/production products
Similarly sad for their PC38X headset. Though I know they shut down their Epos brand it was under a while ago.
My 6xx still worked when I left it at home when moving countries for my siblings to use. I really loved that headphone!
According to Crunchbase, Massdrop raised ~92 MM through their series C, and then another ~40 MM in debt over the last couple years.
There is no way that MassDrop was ever going to justify that kind of capital investment. VC is such an inefficient and frankly delusional form of capital deployment at this point -- they have no idea what they're doing. It ironically looks a lot like central planning, where the VCs themselves invest with the intention of picking the winners and losers themselves.
This company should've bootstrapped and remained small-and-manageable. Not every business, not even most businesses, should raise money with the intention of becoming a "unicorn," it is nonsensical and this model has a lot of deleterious effects for our society, namely and most obviously enshittification when the outcome doesn't justify the investment.
> VC is such an inefficient and frankly delusional form of capital deployment
Can you suggest other saner forms? For example, having experts pick, government pick, or only one single debt instruments all have problems with the kinds of investments VC funds, not to mention that they also have their share of ludicrous and bad investments.
Also please suggest how you’d stop VC as is at its core a private investment club - you and other investors get together to invest capital into a profitable but risky venture. The only way to stop it would be to either ban private capital or to ban coordination of capital which on net ends up significantly worse.
Im no expert, but thoughts:
1. Large firms investing in early r&d instead of aquisition.
2. Its a symptom of decades of poor economic policy rewarding speculation, to a scale that impacts society by disencentivizing stable investments that benefit humanity. Main lever causing this is through Federal reserve poor policy since 200
Large firms investing in early r&d happens regardless. It does not explain how you build new business on an idea you can’t convince large org politics to try.
It’s also what Xerox and Bell labs were doing in the 70s and what Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft etc are doing today but it took smaller more nimble players to actually do anything with the research. Case in point: transformers came from Google.
Sure I agree and good points. But my view is moreso in the scale of VC operations being a symptom of excess speculation, and society would be better off with stable investments. They are poor stewards of capital, and subsidized by the federal reserve.