We're the ones who worked upstream to get the code released for the firmware
for this chipset. It's ingenious to say you can get the same thing elsewhere
or someone else was responsible for manufacturing. That's true of *every*
wifi adapter on the market.
There are other adapters with the exact same chipset. There are differences
mind you in some of these adapters that can cause problems. Sometimes
companies will change the reference design or use a different device ID-
which can result in it not working with the same releases or not working at
all.
The reason the shipping is what it is has to do with underlying software
we're building off. There was not a sane way to set variable prices within
the shopping cart software. Therefore like most companies we just do a 'flat
rate' which means its basically based on averages. Sometimes actual shipping
costs will be twice the $7 charged and sometimes it'll be half that. The
other thing your not taking into consideration is the packaging and other
costs involved in shipping. You can write that off as a business expensive,
but ultimately it makes no difference, and in fact we do in many cases. For
instance if you just order 1 sticker in the USA the shipping is about 1/2
dollar. We don't charge for the shipping. However all that really does is
increase the cost of the sticker.
Charging nothing for shipping mostly amounts to playing mind games...
