They survive because their small customer base see Hedone for what it very legitimately appears to be (an unscrupulous copy shop, with zero respect for anyone's IP) and say, "Thanks, but no thanks".

Without original products coming from original designers and manufacturers, the clones never exist. And so, when you support the clones to save a buck (or a few thousand), you kill the engine that fuels innovation and you're left with milquetoast copies of the same thing, in perpetuity.

Their espresso machines are also blatant copies/mutant children of Kees/Slayer/LM machines. They are cheap. But they are riding on the coat tails of those actually doing innovation and then undercutting them. It's tough.

Frank Durra could be seen as a similar story, but his business model actually began with taking individual VL grinders that were basically unusable back in the early days and would modify them with meaningful upgrades that improved their performance on an individual basis. That is, Laura and John (Versalab) got money for the original grinder purchase and then the owner sent the grinder to Frank for modifications. Eventually, so much of the grinder was changed through his mods that he began building the original TITVS grinders from scratch, cutting out VL.

He also makes upgrade parts for Slayer espresso machines and EK43 grinders, and of course has released several new and novel grinders of the last few years, so I see Frank as a completely different business model than Hedone, but it could be that I'm just salty as an engineer/designer when I see copycats undercut the original designers.

Maybe I would feel different if the Honne were $4,000 or $5,000? Hard to say, but that's why I won't be buying any if their products...