It's unsettling to think the 'crowd sourced' funds for this massive project somehow are to be consumed for the good of the project with nothing to show for us. We didn't pay an assembly set up fee, we paid an assembly fee. It's a bizarre business model to take customer funds to prepare for a production run that doesn't mature, then tell customers China can't supply the last part so they're out of luck. Granted, nonrefundable setup fees are typical with many products--but they're separate fees and the customer commits knowingly. Meanwhile, the business has what we're led to believe is a nearly complete production line for future customers. We are now invested in the production line that future customers will pay for a product with lower setup costs (since we already paid for the setup costs). That could mean more profit for steamboat on future products.
Steamboat made decisions for his business without consulting those who funded his coffers. If consulted, who knows what we may have decided. I would have said don't spend our funds preparing for assembly, I'll risk longer assembly time and secure a 100% assembly refund if the deal goes south. Instead steamboat spent our funds, hoping for the best, which typically is a business expenditure/risk.
First of all, assembly setup is PART of assembly. Would you rather the chips came in and then waited for parts to be purchased and gathered? You didn't realize when you signed up for SB's group buy that he was prepping and assembling everything to be able to basically just put in chips and then test the miners once assembly was finished? Did you not read the part where SB said he paid OVER retail PLUS expedited shipping costs to have everything ready when chips arrived? That's specifically why I chose this group buy, SB promised to have a short time between chip receipt and full miner in hand. This is a risk I PERSONALLY KNEW I WAS TAKING WHEN I SIGNED UP. You should have read a little closer, and you would have realized this as well.
Also, what part of ABSOLUTELY NO REFUNDS did you people not understand when signing up for this? Sure it's the right thing for him to do morally, but he is under NO obligation to refund even as much as he is. He explained the costs and why refunds cannot be 100% and I completely accept his explanation. I'd even wouldn't mind it if SB decided to take a bit just for his effort, which has been substantial. People got paid for doing work with your assembly money, get over it. If you couldn't afford to lose 100% of the money, you should have never risked it. Investing 101.