[ToucanLoucan]

That quote bugs me a little because it presumes that mail order hadn't existed before then, that it was some sort of "act of faith." Sears was selling whole ass houses via the mail in the early 1900's, that's where the term "Craftsman home" came from; it's literally the then-owned-by-Sears brand.

[Teever]

Yeah but Sears is a reputable company selling reputable brands that became so ubiquitous as to enter into the lexicon.

That's miles apart from some fly by night catalogue with ads from Jim Bob selling what was only a decades prior the domain of science fiction and corporate offices.

Like look at it another way. If some fly by night website was selling what they claimed was a desktop replicator for $5000 and someone posted it on Hackernews the top comment would be about how the website isn't responsive and the language is in broken english and somewhere towards the bottom would be a flame war started by some curious person saying "I'm gonna go for it. I just bought it."

[quesera]

> that's where the term "Craftsman home" came from

FWIW, this etymology is incorrect. The American Craftsman architecture style was a derivative of the British Arts & Crafts movement, post Victorian era.

Timeline is roughly: Arts & Crafts circa 1880, American Craftsman circa 1900.

The Sears Craftsman brand was created in 1927.

[bityard]

Yes, but there was still fraud. You didn't send your money away to just any random ad you ran across. Sears was VERY well known. And if you didn't know the company or its reputation, you likely wouldn't send your money away to buy something without at _least_ hearing a positive experience from someone you know and trust.

MITS was not unknown, but they were not a household name. And any microcomputer at that time was quite an expensive toy. Costing an amount that a lot of people could not really afford to just lose.