So watching the recent video introducing the new parts, the bit about choosing rounded corners to avoid the costs of building a completely custom display panel stuck out to me. While I’m not completely sure about the price range for building a custom display without the rounded corners would be, it makes me wonder how many other common requests for various part options like oled and touchscreen might also inhibited by costs, especially if the team isn’t certain on how much demand there is for the option.
I think this might be solvable by offering users the ability to make petitions for parts to the R&D team, where once a particular feature gets a number of signatures, the R&D team reaches out to the manufacturers to get a quote. R&D can then take the quote, figure out how much the part should cost, and present a crowdfunding goal to the community if we’d like to see the option added to the marketplace
Many requests are dealt with by the R&D team. I’m not sure adding more work to their table is going to provide anything.
Just the design for each part is going to take some time and cost framework time and finances in-house and to whom ever they ask to manufacture. Given they already do this to some 70+ parts I’m sure they will do so when they see it makes sense.
You could have a poll, getting forum members to check what they want. However the forum members is a small set of the end users, so that won’t go well.
Also as the laptops are ‘developing’ what was wanted, then won’t be.
The clear exception seems a touch screen and a battery case, but each of these wants is well know to Framework, they do browse the forum though not respond.
If there is something you specifically want you can search the forum and add you weight there.
This is quite a complex topic so I’ll break it down into 2 parts: the financial aspect and the environment aspect.
In terms of finances, R and D is extremely expensive and can be in excess of millions. In addition, they would have to commit to some sort of minimum order quantity to even get partners interested (although Framework in the long-term would want to produce more to sell with the goal of recouping costs). I am somewhat doubtful that this community could crowdfund large sums of money. In addition, it increases the cost per unit as not only do you have to raise enough for R and D, you also need to raise enough to produce the product and generate enough profit. Lastly, crowdfunding is complex due to a number of issues such as delays, changes in cost, and people refunding their orders (ignoring the numerous scandals that have happened in the past with other companies) which can complicate management of Framework’s cash flow.
On the environmental side, Framework is very careful about the products it brings to market as its goal is to minimize waste generated in this industry. Adding more SKUs that only solve minor gripes or wants increases the waste that Framework generates.
Overall, Framework does listen to community feedback about improvements to its existing products (e.g. new screen, 61 Whr battery, stiffer hinges) and new products that the community would like. They have several threads in the general tab asking the community what they would like to see next and that helps to inform what products they might choose to develop. (There’s a whole lot more I could go into but I’m trying to keep this concise).