Im pretty sure Claymore's miners were ripped apart for a long time ago and there are versions available with little to no fees. Still the vast majority of people use the normal devfee version.
SP is free to do whatever he wants with his miners but lets not turn this into "he will get ripped off and no one will pay devfees"
EXAAAACTLY.. I'm all for the dude making a good profit, shit I don't even care if he charges 3+%, that's up to the miner to decide what to choose but don't sit here and make it like him charging double the fee of others is giving it away for free even without the .05btc, it's just a really poor job at white knighting. Let's face it, everyone knows these miners are always out doing each other, to me this .05btc fee is nothing more than trying to dupe inexperienced miners, nothing more. I like SP, I like his work, I think it's good useful work, but I think his pricing is meant to only take advantage of miners, not help them.
All the other excuses I read about why it's like that are just pure bullshit, plain and simple. A dev can make more than .05btc ripping off his product easily if his IP was as unprotected as you say. It's just a garbage excuse. Putting his miner out there for free would not kill the profitability of a coin any more than him listing the most profitable coins here would. Again, stop the bs..
As for the post by Stasel sharing results for his miner, looks like either he's doing something very wrong or the stuff being posted by SP on performance is as BS as his excuses.