A tiny buy quite well regarded "one man band" ham radio antenna company some months ago announced he was packing it in, I think because he needed to find a new workshop and was finding it hard to get something affordable. He initially announced this as a fait accompli.

Then he backtracked, and announced a crowdfunder to help him in the short term - essentially people could donate to help him find new premises. This was actually done successfully a few years ago by another firm in the sector.

Then after a few more weeks of the crowdfunder slowly ticking up, and sales happening, he suddenly announced that in fact, he was actually definitely closing down and refunding the crowd funder. He sort of tacitly blamed economic conditions etc.

I mentioned this to some friends - said I suspected he was really blaming Labour, even though he hadn't said as much.

Then today, quelle surprise :

@bloor this seems like something the manufacturer of Completely Valueless Objects might do, but I think he was well to the right anyway. And his shit was junk.