The botique keyboard space exploded during that time, especially towards the latter half of the 10's and through the pandemic years. There were countless one-off group buys across the price spectrum all offering more interesting products, and in the last 5 years or so there's been a number of vendors offering enthusiast-level features in mass production boards (e.g. Keychron).

It's definitely not a market where one can stand still.

> A great company that made the mistake to stay stagnant.

Sometimes, a company like this is very few people who made something that they wanted and were happy to find others wanted it as well.

So you call it a mistake, but it may very well have been intentional.

> A great company that made the mistake to stay stagnant.

As a customer I’d say that’s a feature, not a bug.

Wireless and backlighting are features I actively avoid.

There's just no way they could have done something like, a split dual purple-gray-gold tri-tone double shot keycaps on lubed gasketed Cherry ultra low profile tactile in black nickel cold hammer forged milled blasted steel chassis with full QMK compatibility and quad nRF53 mesh wireless networking, full wide QCIF microdisplays and native GX16 coiled cable support. They're a Japanese PC peripherals company. Not a hype-revenue-cashflowmaxxing dream YouTuber multi joint venture. The whole keyboard industry is optimized for the latter, and I doubt it can support a real company not subsidized by hype sustainably over time anyway.

Typed on my HHKB Lite 2

I still have 4 of these, even one of their bluetooth ones. They all work, except a 15 year old one whose USB cable got frayed and fell apart. (I bought a USB-C port to see if I could fix it, yet another incomplete project)

I agree with op who said that they aren't getting better but calling it stagnant is more than I would say. The build quality was quite high and they clearly focused on that, and the price reflected that. I own another mechanical keyboard that I bought from Amazon during the pandemic and I already started getting ghost tapping (I only used it for dev work so I was more than a little annoyed to see it).

Not saying it is perfect though. They clearly were a Windows-first shop and that never changed. I've never managed to get the 変換 key and the other Kanji keys working in Linux or on Mac, much to my annoyance.

I bought a Filco Majestouch with Cherry blues, 15 to 20 years ago. I'm still using it, and don't plan on stopping. It's not wireless and doesn't have backlighting or RGB lights on it, but I don't care about any of that. It just works and feels great. It was expensive but worth every dollar — and might very well outlive me.

Pretty much this. I used a majestouch for ages. A good decade later I got a Ducky One 2 for work and the difference in quality and features is huge. I ended up replacing the Majestouch not too long after.

>probably just a dirty contact or something

I have a Leopold with MX brown keys. Bought in 2012. Last year the left ctrl (or maybe left alt? can't remember) started to sometimes not work. I took the back cover off and the soldering job was horrid everywhere. And on that key the solder was mostly non-existent. I touched it up and a few others. All good now.

It’s nothing to do with the manufacturer. I have 3 Filco Majestouch TKL keyboards, all with Cherry MX “silent” Red switches. They are quiet in and of themselves.

The only noise from them is if I bang away at them too hard, which is generally a sign that I’m frustrated and need to go for a walk. (It’s mostly my wife or kid who point out I’m being too noisy, and they are right 99% of the time.)

Sad to see Filco go. I’ll keep an eye on eBay for any bargains to keep a spare of two.

Ya, mechanical keyboards are not very compatible with open offices, even the brown switches people complain about.

FWIW, not all mechanicals are loud. The clicky audible feedback is a deliberate thing on some types of switch, and you can get others with less or even virtually no noise.

You could always consider talking to them about it. A bit off topic here though