Yea I remember when I got into the hobby there were basically zero in-stock gmk sets or higher end boards. People wanted $100 over msrp for used items on mechmarket. I had to wait and be fast enough on an extra drops of each to pull off my first build. Now you got keysets and boards that delivered months ago and still have extras available.
But we don't know these guys situations, who knows, maybe they quit their day jobs to pursue this, they probably weren't in a position to think about it as rationally as you are.
The part that shocks me even more than that is how clamming up and going unresponsive is becoming the go to signature move. You think it would be common sense that to come out ok on situations like these you have to get ahead of it, going silent and just letting people gossip and speculate is just going to make things worse. Even if the situation was horrendously bad, you'd still be better off communicating.
Look at the Aeternus guy, he stole all the gb funds bc he had a "personal emergency". Dude was so beloved by the community that he still has people to this day defending him online even tho he ghosted months ago. Chances are had he just been upfront he probably could of set up a gofundme and got whatever money he needed, I literally don't even understand the logic hoops these guys are jumping thru.
Like I'm guessing the reason my GMK Moonlight from Mechs&Co hasn't shipped is they probably never ordered the deskmats and absorbed the funds since that was the one thing that was on them to order. If I just had a way to contact them, hell, I'd tell them to just cancel the deskmat and keep the money and send me my base set. But I can't. We're an understanding community, we get it, but it's like people are going out of their way to put themselves in the least defensible position possible.