I agree with you, but some coin devs put the FPGAs in the same categeory as ASICs, for good or bad reasons depending mostly on a personnal point of vue.
I'm ok with ASICs and FPGAs as long as the game is fair, meaning companies develop and sell them without retaining them and mining with for months and throwing them on the market only when it's more profitable compared to mining. That's what all major ASIC maker do, they compete against their "customers".
That's the reason why I like the initiatives here, BCU1525, ACORN M2...They give a chance to the people, not only deep pockets companies or investors who don't give a crap about blockchain / crypto, those which would invest in any business as long as it's profitable.
Mining should be for the people by the people.
Many of the posts in this thread illustrate why more companies mine the hardware before they sell it, require bulk orders, provide poor customer service, etc. I mean really what is the point of providing a product in a transparent manner at a reasonable price? SQRL is the the perfect example of a company building fpga miners internally that decided to throw a bone to everyone and sell the same hardware at a very small markup. What did that get them? A bunch of accusations about scams and fake products, and this was before they even took a cent from anyone! Fast forward to the first half of August and people are already blowing up support, asking pointless questions about a product that is not past its shipping deadline.
So what is really a shipping deadline? I believe that more information about SQRL miner should be released ahead of the launch. We should be able to prepare which pools we could be using. I am personally (most would disagree) very much want NiceHash strata support, especially in light of current Market volatility. I actually stopped mining on GPUs yesterday (too hot and electricity cost coming too close to gains) and am only mining on ASICs