I don't think the thread went to shit exactly, that won't happen until Josh shows up.
Ha, I suppose I was exaggerating a bit before. I totally agree with you on this one.
There's a whole lot of anger being directed at BFL and justifiably so, they've caused damage that extends to those that didn't even order from them IMO. I believe we have to get past this notion that their delays are caused by incompetence. While I've said the same thing myself in the past, in hindsight, I think it's pretty clear that they just want everyone to believe they're incompetent. Seriously, there's no way Josh could have believed there was any chance whatsoever that BFL would be able to ship a finished ASIC product before 12/31/2012 when he routinely implied as much in early and mid December. He's done the same thing over and over. There's simply no way. Josh is many things, but he's not dumb. When did they set up their new facility again?
That's an interesting way of looking at it (on the incompetence part). It could surely be that they're only playing dumb, but I'm not sure what the purpose of it is...giving themselves more time overall, sure..but I'm not sure what else. People can say it's to pull in more and more money, but the vast majority of orders (that we've been informed of) so far have all been in the early months (June-September). After that, reported pre-orders have been slowly dwindling..which is understandable given bucket after bucket of bad news has been dumped on our heads.
And I agree that they couldn't have shipped before the end of 2012, even if they stuck with their original chip design.
At this point I'd like someone to explain to me like I'm five how there's any chance at all that BFL didn't deliberately dismantle the FPGA market and cause a whole lot of people to lose mining revenue by making what in hindsight were awful decisions based on misinformation supplied by BFL to support their blatantly premature ASIC announcement. I believe they had a very limited supply of FPGA chips and when their source dried up they concocted this elaborate scheme to damage their competitors and gain the upper hand in the future ASIC mining market. They very plainly had next to nothing done in fall of 2012, yet they consistently pretended as though they could be ready to ship at any time. This isn't tomfoolery, or shenanigans, it's fraud. They've cost people a lot of money with their market manipulation games.
Unfortunately I wasn't as involved in Bitcoin during the dawn / spread of FPGAs, so I don't have much of an opinion on that side of things. But what I can say is that premature offerings are a great way to build up a customer list (and massive piles of cash), especially since BFL was the first (IIRC) to offer a reasonably priced ASIC device for "pre-order". And as long as they keep pretending they know what they're doing, they can keep playing the "incompetent" card (or at least trying to) in order to fend off fraud accusations when shit hits the fan.
You're obviously bright Korbman, and I know you have BFL orders, can you explain to me where I'm wrong here?
D'aw thanks Creative, and you're quite intelligent yourself
As for my orders, the early orders were primarily driven by the notion that BFL was going to ship first..which it did seem that way at the beginning. The later, more substantial orders, were the result of a mix between timing (it was either get into BFL now, or attempt Avalon Batch #2), power efficiency (ordering 8 Avalons would rape my power bill), and space considerations. Not to mention the gamble between which would ship first (at the time).
In short, you're not wrong (yet
)
...also as to Josh specifically and his PR job, I think he's done an absolutely masterful job of isolating and attacking any and all outspoken outliers here. If someone asks tough questions about BFL, particularly about their financial solvency, Inaba nearly always shows up and begins with the verbal assault. Shortly there after the thread is moved to the "troll museum" or newbies begin to attack Josh's target like a string of over protective groupies. Think about his comments about how a few posters here allegedly increase BFL sales by asking tough questions about BFL. That stuff is brilliant because it sticks with people and plants a seed of doubt in their minds.
I partially agree here. He mostly responds to trolls with
more troll-ish behavior and ignores people with valid questions or concerns. But you're right, it quickly derails the thread into a heap of garbage..usually to the point that there's just pages of "User Ignored" (as someone called it, an "Ignore Party") haha.
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