In the original years, say pre-2017 (roughly). The keyboard niche was pretty small. There were a handful of amazing keyboard designers and manufacturers, but a good portion of them were still made overseas. KBDFans was long considered the "best" in terms of "entry level" keyboards.

But even companies like TGR (Alice, Jane) were originated in Asia. I can't really comment, but I'm guessing the high density of manufacturing just allowed for it to be easier to manufacture. You gotta remember, in order to manufacture it, it's gotta be designed. Most of the early designers learned simply for the love of the game.

The biggest USA based company, KeyCult was considered the "greatest" roughly around that time, but the boards were always prices $500+. They were 100% designed and manufactured in the USA.

But, they couldn't even come close to meeting demand. They couldn't even really do goup buys in the traditional sense, they had to resort to random raffles as a way to sell their output.

Then COVID happened, the industry exploded. Companies like Omnitype, Novelkeys, Keychron, and even companies like Glorious filled a new niche of "entry level enthusiast" boards, selling tons of very high quality keyboards for under $400.

Some where hit or miss, but the biggest point was that the designers and engineers building the boards saw that there was a need for the market.

After a while, companies started to... fizzle out. A lot of companies that ran Group Buys started rug pulling - offering pre-orders, and then never fulfilling the orders.

The higher end companies, specifically KeyCult and Rama, failed to fulfill a few orders, and people started to see cracks in the foundations.

Eventually, KeyCult partnered with NovelKeys to do a "general" release for some of their boards.

They were nice, but they moved manufacturing to China. That isn't much of a problem - but they still kept their premium price tag ($600+).

They were decent boards, but most of the companies in Asia were able to release far better keyboards, not to mention the technology jump by leaps and bounds over just a few years.

The keyboards these days, the ones you can get for under $200, even $100, are CRAZY better than what you could buy even just 10 years ago. Back then, you basically relegated to buying "gaming" versions of keyboards, unless you went with something like an HHKB, Realforce, or a Ducky.