How has framework managed to get so much momentum and achieve so much progress before the product has even been made available for pre-order? In fact, how has Framework managed to achieve any of the things that it has with the design? The Framework Laptop doesn’t seem possible without Framework having incredibly deep pockets and massive scale.
Coming from the Purism community, I’ve gotten somewhat accustomed to a product being announced and made available for pre-order before the design is even finalised or there are any prototypes. I’ve also gotten used to the idea that selling replacement parts on the open market is uneconomical and unfeasible, changing information and the idea that having a design where the display and keyboard are glued is necessary. Even beyond these, the differences between Framework and other organisations with aligned goals are massive on every single level. Issues are always said to be the consequences of the small scale of their operations. From my experiences with StarLabs, System76 and Purism, I gathered that without being a major OEM with massive scale, industry connections and deep pockets, there were some things that just aren’t possible, even after paying a huge price premium.
The struggles that would be involved in delivering the framework laptop with it’s entire set of features and qualities seem to be many orders of magnitude greater than the supposedly unsolvable issues plaguing these other companies. I refuse to believe the (excellent) Framework team are so much better and more capable than the entire collective manpower behind these other organisations that they managed to achieve a string of feats that were deemed literally impossible for any organisation that isn’t a major OEM.
What am I missing here? How is this possible? Industry connections? Angel investor trillionare? Links to a major OEM?