This was slightly before the craziness that is BFL. When things were more transparent. As you can see on their site, they actually had a great plan and even great buy back. It was all downhill after.
While they were certainly more reputable back then compared to today, it does still look like they had a few problems even back when they only made FPGAs:
Now some time ago, Butterfly Labs (BFL), a well-known manufacturer of FPGA miners announced they were releasing an ASIC line. There are a lot of criticisms of BFL, some more valid than others, but let’s just say they’ve got a history of under-delivering on promises and horribly delayed shipping – to the point where many in the Bitcoin community doubt that a BFL ASIC is actually in the pipeline or if we’re all being scammed. For the purpose of this article, let’s assume we’re not being scammed, and BFL will deliver everything they’ve promised – here’s their intended lineup:...
...This device appears poised to compete with BFL’s BitForce Single SC unit. The new miners clock in at around $39.62 per GH/s compared to BFL’s $32.48, so BFL is still the cheaper option, but here are some considerations that might make the bASIC look a little more desireable:...
...BTCFPGA.com has a track record of over-delivering on promises, BFL has a track record of under-delivering. Enough said?
Source:
http://codinginmysleep.com/non-bfl-asic/The lack of on board control panel like we see on current miners and the lack of connection to the computer. Making it connect to a online control panel hosted by them was their design. This was a feasible option and not that bad(at the time) if trust and hacking hadnt been such an issue and the idea that we could even check on things by not even being home sparked a lot of interest since people planned off or out of home mining.
It would be OK and probably quite a useful feature if that setting was optional but to have the mining process connect directly to their servers and controlled by them without an option to host it yourself kind of goes against the principles of decentralization IMO.
EDIT: Just found the thread that you're talking about
here where LargeCoin justifies the model. Seems that I'm not the only person who thinks that the idea wasn't so great:
Interesting solution you advertise here.
I'm asking like another poster did, why will the equipment be tied to your platform ? The whole idea of bitcoin is that it shall be decentralized. If you produce a lot of this equipment, and you sit with a central control (as I understand all clients can control it from the online web-page on your server), then the decentralization goes out the window.
Although I'm very sure you're working extremely hard with this, but a lot of us are freedom loving individuals that would like to be able to govern our own equipment. Why not make it possible for the users to administrate the system from his own computer, or though any interface. If you want it to be administered through a web-interface, then this could be integrated in the unit and need not have a remote central for it to be administered?
What guarantees are there except your words that once enough units are deployed that there will be a 51% attack on the network, either by you or somebody attacking the central platform (talk about juicy target).
I sincerely hope this does not come forward as too negative, but these are questions that we really need to ask. I wish you best of luck in the continued business endeavors.
And posted in response to the above:
I was about to post this, but you wrote a much better text
Mining with hardware that is tied to a central platform defeats the whole purpose of mining.
It does look like they listened to the feedback and considered making it optional though:
Both - most customers (we imagine) will prefer to control the system through a nice hosted UI. Others will configure their appliances to connect to a pool and contribute mining shares without any interaction with our control panel service. There will be a way to run the appliance completely independently - we hear you, and will make sure this option is available.
It seems to have been partly motivated by licensing issues too (i.e. as a type of DRM):
As I've written in various posts, after you receive the appliance, you can either connect it to the Internet, in which case it will self-register and obtain a license automatically when you pay the balance; or, you can leave it disconnected and install the license file manually. I think most customers will take the auto-registration route for convenience. After you have paid us and obtained the full license key, there is no need for the system to contact LargeCoin central again, and you will be able to stop this from happening without having any effect on mining.
