disclosure: I am waiting for 3x60gh/s Singles - ordered within first 2 weeks of pre-orders
Initially I wasn't concerned with BFL shipping the jally's - I mean even 200x5gh/s is only a minimal increase in the the network.
But since then, BFL have started shipping a crap load and covering almost all of the first 2 weeks of orders of jala's ... that is a LOT.
In the meantime, the big investors, and I'm talking mini-rigs here, not even singles, the ones who paid the big $ are the ones getting well and truly screwed.
BFL are just so happy to be delivering SOMETHING, and have something to tell customers, they are forgetting the big investors ... and that is plan bad customer service.
Not that BFL cares about customers anyway. BFL know they screwed up, and they know their reputation is in the mud. Why would they care?
THEY ARE NOT INVESTORS! THEY ARE CUSTOMERS. Why is this such a difficult concept for people?
I don't think anybody is saying that the current situation is ideal. It totally sucks that you are having to wait on your equipment. I feel for you. I really do. But your equipment just isn't physically available yet. They can't ship something they don't have, and it would be unfair to sit on hardware that they do have ready to ship.
I hope that they get the development of the other products wrapped up and shipping shortly, but you're not an "investor" and you're not being "screwed" by the fact that BFL is shipping everything that they're currently capable of shipping.
If they were sitting on available hardware, you can bet your ass that there would be people pitching a fit about that as well. BFL really can't win at this point, because there's always gonna be some group that is going to hate the way they do things. I, of course, realize that they've made their own bed here, with multiple missed release dates, but it is what it is. They can only move forward from the point they're currently at. Unfortunately, no changing what's already happened.
Their best bet is to ship as much as they're capable of shipping, and to develop their other products as quickly as they can and get them to their CUSTOMERS (they're not investors) as quickly as possible.
in·vest·ment
/inˈves(t)mənt/
Noun
1.The action or process of investing money for profit or material result.
2.A thing that is worth buying because it may be profitable or useful in the future.
Everything you buy is an "Investment" that doesn't make you an investor in a company. It makes you an investor in a PRODUCT. Big difference. You're still a customer, unless you have an investment in the company. Learn the difference. It will make this easier for you. If I buy a fleet of Chevy trucks, and use them to make money, I'm not a "Chevy investor", I'm a Chevy customer. Nobody would argue that a fleet of trucks is not an "investment," but nobody would take seriously the assertion that I'm an "investor" in The General Motors Corporation. If I want to be a GM/Chevy investor, I buy STOCK, not their products.
What if I buy a fleet of bulldozers from Caterpillar? Still not an "investor"
You still have problems comprehending the one fact that these devices are NOTHING like a typical consumer product. You just don't read or comprehend things well.
Bulldozers aren't a "typical consumer product" either. I'm still not a Caterpillar investor.
These devices ARE an investment because you buy them and they make you money. Let's put that in perspective so you can understand it. I'll use the singing fish you love so much. If I were to go buy a LIMITED EDITION.. only 200 made.. singing fish (let's call him by his name.. Billy Bass).. and you held on to it in its packaging hoping and hopefully after some research.. knowing.. that this thing would increase in price due to its rarity. If you were buying it to then sell at a later date, it would be an investment... for you. For a company to care who got #1 billy bass or #200 billy bass is of no concern to them though.
Exactly, they are an investment (just like EVERYTHING you buy). That doesn't make you a BFL investor. In your Billy Bass example you made an investment in the Billy Bass fish. You are not one of Amazon's investors. You're one of Amazon's CUSTOMERS. Get it? If you complained to somebody that you weren't being treated fairly as an "Amazon investor" because they delayed sending you your limited edition singing fish, you'd be laughed out of town.
In this situation however, if 200 of them are identical, the difference in price, shipping time, and profitability would not be very different from 1 to 200. In BFL's case, the amount of time that passes clearly determines how much this investment will pay back. We are talking about a couple thousand for someone like me, and worse, several 10's of thousands for those who invested a couple of grand.
That's totally immaterial to the discussion. How much money you could have made if the situation were different is just silly speculation. If they'd already shipped everything, difficulty would have risen sooner as well. Moot point, and again has nothing to do with whether you're one of BFL's "investors". You're a consumer who hoped to get a product earlier in order to make more money with it. Nothing more.
And for those that actually put in at the beginning, 1K, 2K, 3K, 10K.. those people basically "financially backed" this company when they needed money the most. You would think with the high risk they had to endure, and the longest wait time (something a April 2013 customer would not understand), that the people who put in first would get the most back on their investment.
And they will. Those who receive their orders earlier (earlier orders) will make a higher return than those who order later. There was no gurantee that your profit increase would be exponential, you just presumed it. Everybody who ordered higher density hardware earlier will get their higher density hardware earlier than later higher-density orders.
If they don't ship their big chip items soon, these jalapenos in the wild are going to seriously affect how much their other clients make. Once again let me reiterate that these clients are the ones from the beginning. These are the ones that put some serious money into a company's dream at the time. If they were April orders, then of course they wouldn't care as much when shipments of one type are going out. April orders are going to have to wait for a WHILE to get their product. A person who ordered in June/July could have been receiving their product next week if they had all the working parts in.
No, these are people who put money into their own dreams. You (along with the others) saw dollar signs for yourself, not for BFL. You placed a pre-order for your high-density BFL hardware, because you wanted to be first in line to receive high-density BFL hardware. And you still have your same spot in line to receive that product. It sucks that it was delayed, but you're still getting EXACTLY what you paid for. A spot in line for a product, as well as having paid only half what others who order(ed) later than you are paying. I understand that it's frustrating that it's taken so much longer to develop than anticipated, but again, this has nothing to do with the Jalpeno orders or Jalpeno customers. and it doesn't make you a "BFL investor".
I have no way of verifying it, but I do believe that BFL has stated from the beginning that pre-order money has not been touched. If that's true, your case is even weaker. Pre-orders for a product a company is making does not make you a "financial backer" of a company. Financial backers assume fiduciary risk with the company, they don't receive a product in return for their money, and they aren't entitled to refunds.
And yeah, BFL cannot win right now.. you just said it. So might as well do the "right" thing over the one that makes them money faster. Lets be honest... as 100's of people open their Jalapenos and put their reviews up on forums, or videos on youtube, people are going to be putting massive amount back into ordering Butterfly labs.. even if they don't deliver Singles or Mini rigs by then.
What's "right" is to fulfill all of their obligations as quickly as possible. They have the ability to currently fill a large portion of their obligations by shipping the orders that they have the hardware on hand to fill. Anything less than that would be foolish, bad for the company, bad for their ACTUAL investors, and bad for their customers (which is the category you fall into). If it had happened to be the hardware that YOU have on order that they'd completed first, and they were sitting on it waiting to complete development on all of their other products before shipping YOURS, you'd be pitching a fit. This whole "me, me, me, me" mentality is so transparent. You only want them to do what directly benefits YOU the most, and anything else will net outcry.
..I guess there is always the possibility that they are not doing well financially. So many people have said but that is all speculation. But IF they are not doing well.. I would much rather them get 1000's of jalapenos out if the alternative was them shutting down the doors.
It's a possibility, but not altogether likely. I think that it's in their best interest to get as many of their products out the door as possible, regardless of a current financial situation. If, indeed, they are needing more money, it would seem that filling a large number of orders would entitle them to preorder money for those orders that has apparently been stashed away untouched. Perhaps opening up more capital to invest in the development of YOUR ordered products. More money for BFL quite likely will result in faster completion of the development of their other products that they're still working on.
If I had the opportunity I would take 8 Jalapenos for my 40GH/s ordered if it meant I could get my order this month vs next month, or even further out. Some people with 250+GH/s orders.. they would have to manage 50+ Jalapeno devices. Even though people want their GH asap, I doubt the big orders would put up with having to manage that many devices.
As I said before, I can understand your point here, but I don't know that it would actually translate into the bulk of high-density people getting their orders any faster, and it's highly likely that it would actually delay it further. This all depends on how close they are to completing development on their other products, but if shipping several thousand more jalpenos pushes everybody in the queue back several more months, vs completing and shipping high-density hardware, en masse, sooner, you might be shooting yourself in the foot by demanding that low volume/high density orders be converted into high volume/low density orders.