So...for those that don't have three hours to spare...
GN:
1) NZXT is getting money out of old product by offering it up in a rental program.
2) The rental is a service, not rent to own. That means you literally never have anything.
3) The marketing with influencers is basically trying to sell this to the vulnerable.
4) The terms in the legal fine print are basically punitive instead of cooperative.
5) The entire website is basically designed to change specifications at will, and because of that contract it's allowed for you to "rent" a 4090, get a 4080, and have to pay a month of the rental service because opening the box to confirm you got what you ordered prevents you from returning the thing if it was ever "used." Not prevents permanently, just prevents a full refund.
The rest of this is framing, justification, and demonstrating their points with hard data...which is time consuming.
Jay:
WTF? This is the BP oil spill from South Park. I know it's been said, but the schtick here is that Jay isn't sure he'll never work with these people again so he's providing a platform for this non-pology to happen. Seriously though, how do you as a CEO pretend that all of this is news to you? You had to get legal to craft the agreement. You had to setup and approve of the website. You had to know that you are sitting on warehousing full of old junk because of bad decisions, and that this was obviously a hail Mary play to try and get financial resources back while functionally writing the stuff off as losses...because that's the kind of scum baggery that we expect from this sort of transparent cash grab to try and *presumably* save a faltering company.
It serves me now to conjecture that GN is going to bring to light emails from former employees authorizing these shenanigans. That's kind of the standard thing to happen after somebody claims complete ignorance in this day and age, no? It'll lead to people absolutely frustrated enough not to engage...and the influencers who shilled this crap will literally have no repercussions. In about 4 months we'll hear about how NZXT discontinued the program, because it wasn't profitable enough, and the current holders of any of this hardware will be given the opportunity to buy it outright for about new pricing...which will basically mean they've gotten to write the hardware off, and get more than fair market value. In six months we'll hardly remember any of this, and NZXT will be fondly remembered for the good times.
I stand by my statement earlier that this isn't evil. It's a CEO who has been forced to either be removed or show a quick turn-around...and they are showing that turn off of a cliff (Road Runner and Wily Coyote style). I'm sure the mental justification was that this would only be for clearing out old inventory, and once they were back to profitable they'd decide to stop pushing the program...which is the same logic a junkie uses. It would instead have just been another chance for NZXT to become profitable, and if it worked the management would continue to push short term gains...which would have eventually made this program find a new low...
I may sound bitter, but that's just because we're in that wonderful period where the games industry blows because the live service and open world trends, along with loot boxes, is finally coming home to kill the industry. The consolidation of publishing has killed so many of the medium sized developers it isn't funny. The hardware industry is again to a place where a console can game better than an equally priced PC. It's all of the bad decisions and stupid trends culling into one category 5 s*** storm...and I hate having to live through it. Thank all that is good that occasionally something awesome slips by...however infrequently...that makes living this life still fun and rewarding.
