Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy and freedom while protecting their security.
There shtick is privacy. They are selling privacy oriented machines which is a value add for people who need device privacy but don't have the bandwidth to to setup and audit everything themselves. The service they are selling is more privacy then value budget hardware.
pricing is in line with the top ipad. I consider it kind of an activist move to buy one of these though, more about supporting a cause than getting a device with maximal functionality.
With prices like this, it's kind of performative activism though. It severely limits access and makes it like privacy is a luxury only a few can afford. That's a weird message to be sending out.
I feel that pain, but probably not to the same degree. I've backed over 300 campaigns on Kickstarter and Gamefound. I've had around 8 that didn't fulfill and didn't give a refund -- somewhere in the vicinity of $500-800 worth overall. It's maddening when it feels like our money was either stolen or at best, wasted.
I like the ethos behind Purism, I was worried they wouldn't be profitable at all. I hope this is enough profitablity to attract greater investment to grow and create economies of scale and lower the retail price and reduce lead times to be in line with the rest of the market.
It would be nice if companies like this came out with a budget model so more people could participate in supporting their products. Lotta poor folks into FOSS.
I was just having a conversation about a Google free, AI Free phone option. This isn't quite where the folks I was talking to need it to be (mostly needs eSim and 5G would be nice), but it certainly something to keep an eye on.