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ELEMENT 31

How reservations will work when they open

Reservations are not yet open. When they are, a reservation will hold a place, not buy a machine; nobody buys a Genie. It will be fully refundable with one click, and nothing ships until the terms are published.

IN SHORT

Reservations are not yet open. When they open, a reservation will not be a purchase: it will hold your place, it will be fully refundable at any time with one click, and nothing ships until specifications, hosting terms, and measured performance are published. The household never pays for the hardware. When they open, the $100 deposit will be refundable at any time; when the hosting terms are published, the household either confirms its place on them or takes an instant refund.

Genie is in development and reservations are not yet open. Because people ask what a reservation will mean when the time comes, here is the plain account, written in the future tense on purpose, since none of it is available yet.

What a reservation will be

When reservations open, a reservation will hold your place. That is its entire function. It will be made with the $100 deposit, and the deposit will be fully refundable at any time with one click. No reason will be asked for and no penalty applied. The deposit is not a payment toward the hardware, because nobody pays for a Genie: it is placed in the home at no cost, and the household earns when the work it does is sold.

When the hosting terms are published, along with specifications and measured results from real homes, the person holding the reservation will have a choice. They can confirm their place on those terms. Or they can take an instant refund. Either way, they will decide with the full picture in front of them, not before.

What a reservation will not be

A reservation will not be a purchase. It will not commit anyone to anything, and it will not be the first payment toward anything. Nothing will ship on the strength of a reservation, because nothing ships until specifications, hosting terms, and measured performance are published.

A reservation will not be an investment, a stake, or a token of any kind. No tokens. No mining. Dollars for work. It will be a refundable deposit that marks a place in line and does nothing else.

A reservation will also not lock in the hosting terms, because none will exist at the time. Element 31 does not announce terms before they are final, and will not quote expected terms to people reserving. The protection against that uncertainty is the refund, which will be available at any time with one click.

The order of events

The sequence, when reservations open, will be this. A person places a reservation and pays the $100 deposit. Element 31 continues development and continues finding businesses whose batch work will keep machines busy, since machines ship only where real buyers exist. At any point in that stretch the person may take a full refund with one click.

Element 31 then publishes specifications, the hosting terms, and measured results from real homes, including the low ones. The person reads them and either confirms their place on those terms or takes an instant refund. Machines ship after that, and not before, at a pace set by demand.

Why it is built this way

Element 31 will not sell a machine on the basis of figures it has not measured or promises it cannot keep. A reservation that could be lost, that locked in a commitment, or that implied a return would be a way of doing exactly that by another route. So the reservation is being designed to carry no risk for the person holding it beyond the trouble of clicking refund.

The full terms will be set out on the reservation terms page when reservations open, and the list of what will be published before the first Genie ships is in its own article. The pacing rule that governs shipping is explained in Demand first, then machines.

Questions this raises

Will a reservation lock in the hosting terms?
No. No terms will exist when reservations open, and Element 31 does not announce them before they are final. The protection against that uncertainty is the refund, available at any time with one click.
Is the deposit a payment toward the hardware?
No. Nobody pays for a Genie; it is placed in the home at no cost and the household earns when the work it does is sold. The deposit holds a place in line and is refundable at any time.
Can a reservation be refunded after the terms are published?
Yes. When the hosting terms are published, the choice is to confirm a place on them or take an instant refund. Nobody is held to a reservation.

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