BlokForge did this the right way and I don't feel they have anything to apologize for. I'm not saying this because I was one of the lucky ones. I'm saying it because it was the most fair way to do it and all the suggestions being bounced around would have caused things to go the same or worse.
(Warn people that you expect high traffic when the sale starts) - Assuming BF knew that their website would be suddenly slammed with thousands of would-be buyers, what purpose does warning everyone about it serve? The end result is the same and we all knew that everyone was going to be on there trying to order anyways.
(Advise How Many Units are available) - What is gained by knowing how many units they have available? If you knew there were less than 100, what would you have done differently? Scarcity breeds more interest, not less.
(Limit to 1 per person) - I like that they set a limit. I can't say I like it being as low as one miner, though. A more appropriate method of limiting order sizes would be to related it to the total number of miners available. If there are few to go around, then make an appropriate limit. Consider also that BF creates more work for themselves because the smaller limit increases the number of orders to ship, payments to handle/receive, and increases the number of potential shipping issues.
THANK YOU FOR THE LIMIT, BLOKFORGE! Seriously. That really helps those of us that do not have tens of thousands of dollars to throw around or the ability to write a script to automatically order dozens of units as soon as they're available).
(Don't let miners be added to the cart if there are none left) - I believe the issue here was that people were in the process of buying the same miners you were able to add to your cart. There is no way around this except that you can remove any units in someone's cart from the available inventory. That is a bad idea because of the high-traffic issues and people constantly hitting F5, which can increase the number units they end up adding to their cart. That is alleviated somewhat with the order limit, but I've only ever had negative experiences with websites that do this.
(Make a Lottery/Queue System) - I think the lottery and the queue are both not-great ideas. There will be rumors that BlokForge is picking friends or family or that they're not randomizing the selection in the correct way. I've never known any other seller (in any private industry/business) to do something similar. And you're not thinking about just how many people would be in that lottery...
For the most part, all of us were on equal footing tonight. All of us were frantically trying to F5 our way to the "Submit Order" screen. And you were only competing with those that were actually online and trying to get the order. If there was a lottery/queue, then just think about how many people would just be adding themselves to the list. Now you're competing against 5,000 or 10,000... They already limited it to 2 per customer, which created a better chance than any of us has ever had trying to catch an order through Canaan.io directly.
I'm not trying to pander, but I honestly don't know how anyone could have expected BlokForge to handle that better. Honestly, I'm surprised their website didn't completely crash, since I doubt the servers were set-up for that much traffic. We are in a new world of BTC Mining. Even if you didn't get any tonight, you at least had a chance.
I agree to much of this, and Blokforge probably did the best they could with what they have. Buy limits based on batch size would be great.
I differ on the points about and traffic and inventory announcements. Not everyone is in a frenzy to get a miner. Knowing that there is little chance of getting on to a website, then buying one of the few miners, might sober some people up. They might not try/save their money for next time/try a different store etc (which could lessen the web traffic).
There are a lot of people who are in a bitcoin frenzy. There are also people who approach this realistically, not to get rich quick or be part of the latest trend, and would simply like to get into mining on a small scale (because they believe in bitcoin).
So I'm not saying that Blokforge should give dire warnings about impending stampedes before sales, just there are people who would weigh that information before madly smashing "refresh" on their browser for ten minutes
. I did that (it didn't keep adding units to my cart), but not out of a frenzy, rather feeling a bit frustrated. Like, is there a chance for the little guy in mining or do you need to have enough money to buy a pallet? I don't need a pallet, I'd be happy with one or two.
As it is I may save for an A8 or see what else is out there. Demand may still be high but maybe the stampede will thin out because people realize they won't get rich quick/mining isn't so easy with set ups and power supplies/etc.
I know that whatever Blokforge and the other distributors announce, I'll be going into the A8 buy soberly. If I get one I get one, it's better to see them go to other individual miners than farms though.
Show Posts
