@karatekid@mastodon.social The price needs to cover not just hardware, but also software and support - and even the hardware costs alone skyrocketed because of parts availability and resulting smaller production batches. L5USA had a completely different (and more costly) production line and in turn could be produced in extremely small batches on demand, unlike regular L5 - and at this point both are available within weeks since the L5 queue is almost cleared.
@karatekid@mastodon.social The project went through many difficulties, which has been frustrating for everyone (I got my own order late as well!) and I'm not happy with some of Purism's communication around that, but there's also a lot of FUD flowing around. The phones *were* being shipped to customers back in 2019, I was helping them with their issues myself; the final revision was ready in the middle of 2021 (and likely would be in 2020 if not for COVID). Things were constantly in motion, even if very slow.