Just to make something clear: I don't own NCASE. @ wahaha360 does. That was the agreement from the beginning: I would handle the design, he would handle the business side of things. So while I can try to make a case for doing things a certain way, ultimately it's not up to me. And believe me when I say we've had plenty of arguments in the past. He has his reasons for not wanting to use distributors, which do make some sense*. He has some ideas about how to scale up, but it's not trivial. There are certain limitations with production based in Taiwan, so for the past couple of years he's been working towards doing manufacturing and shipping out of China (not necessarily for the M1, but it's an option). That's part of the impetus for his SidearmD project.While I agree with your sympathy for @Necere the fact is very few products can endure a 9 month wait time let a lone a 3 month time span in this global economy in 2020 so comparing past experiences doesn't translate. While I agree the NCase M1 is by far the best SFF case, there are a lot of really great SFF cases out there or coming out in 2020. Sliger is throwing out some amazing cases and even at CES I have seen some good ITX cases. I really can't comprehend what Necere is going through as a small business owner but I can can say there is a extreme demand for his cases and in 2020 I think he needs to scale better.
Hey people would pay anything for the demand Necere's cases have so really it's a good problem to have, but as someone who does retail buying for a living seeing the lack of fulfillment on a personal level has me tilted. If this is always going to be a boutique low margin business so be it, there is no reason for him to change his business model but if he ever decides to go more mainstream then his cases have a ton of potential to make a ton of money, while making a lot of nerds like us happy
*On the topic of distribution, the cofounder of Schiit Audio wrote a lengthy series of posts/book in which he makes the case against using distributors. Quote, "Go direct—distribution is a poisonous remnant of 19th century economics in a disintermediated world."