Congrats to friedcat, he did it very well considering he had a limited supply and there was a shortage of supply in the market, but saying that those prices are reasonable (meaning they will allow ROI for customers) is plainly and simply retarded.
Why is it the responsibility of a seller to sell for any less than the market will pay him for his goods?
I would consider a seller who wasn't selling for the maximum they could get for low quantity items to be somewhat mentally defective. There is very strong demand and very limited supply, therefore the prices will be quite high.
I think you got me wrong. I did not intend to be ironic. I really congratulate Friedcat, he did an
epic job, not only for him but for all ASICMiner shareholders. Kudos for him. In fact, I assume that he hasn't got the capacity to quickly produce and ship thousands of units, he has a limited production capacity, and he squeezed the maximum profit from this limited production capacity.
This is how the market works. If he suddenly sees that he is able to produce thousands of units and sell them with a mark-up than allows him to have a bigger profit than mining himself, he will probably do it because he is acting as a clever manager. I think he achieved an optimum equilibrium, his mining op works wonders and each one of his limited units on sale is being sold at a huge mark-up. The truth is that every businesses priority is to maximize profits. If you have money printing machines, you have to squeeze the maximum you can from them, full stop. I don't see how all this changes the fact that the customers of those units will probably lose money. They are willing to pay for it because of either greed or ignorance, so be it. There's no ethics here, just capitalism at work.