another thing, I do not agree on the guarantee, 90 days are very short, the guarantee must be at least 365 days.
180 is fair.
365 is too long.
90 is too short.
While you may not agree with 180 it is 2x 90. It also allow you 5 months of mining and then sell it while under warranty.
I agree with you Phil, 180 would be closer to fair. After all comparing this to a car is not fair, individual miners don't cost 10, 20, - 50+ thousand USD.
Although, I think we should see a faster jump on warranty issues under 90 days. I do not think many of us are out to screw bitmain. I simply want to get equipment which runs per spec. The smart person isn't underpowering these things because they know what problems to expect. The smart person isn't taking their $2,000 purchase and jacking up the frequency right off the bat and taking a chance it will be down. The smart person is connecting it, making sure everything is setup correctly, and mining with it.
I also think anyone with common sense would look at the overall scenarios of people and agree that bitmain is sorely hurting in the support area.
In my business we know there are some people who take advantage of us. We go above and beyond. I also know I do everything possible to make sure these are repeat customers, and I certainly make my money back on the next deal. It is not difficult. It is business.
My equipment costs hundreds of thousands so we have a scale to consider, but even then I am told almost daily we have the best support in our industry. I answer my phone 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, and our biggest clients have my direct numbers. Bitmain probably does the same at some level. We also have standard emergency lines you may call and we rotate official emergency support. If you spend 5 dollars or 500,000 you get the same support. We jump no matter what.
This is based on one simple reason and expands from there, but people running a business should always consider the person spending 5 bucks today could be spending 500,000 at some point in the future.
We are unique in our industry. We do not have to offer this level of support to maintain our edge, but personally I could never work any other way. It is ingrained in my cells that when people need help, I help. Sure sometimes I am taken advantage of, but to me, that is the price of doing business properly.
If I ever heard an employee talking down to a customer, or, heard a customer was being ignored, even if that customer is in the wrong, that employee would go to the wood shed. I expect the same treatment from others. If I get hostile with someone, or ignore them, you better believe the culture we have created is that action would be questioned and someone would immediately step in and handle it.
I mentioned this in another of my posts yesterday, it very much is a cultural difference in the approach to doing business, but, it should not be this way.
I work with many customers in mexico, and it is their culture to do what I would call screw you over the first time around. When we submit an invoice they usually do not pay right away, and try to get out of some or all of the payment, but when we call and explain things and go through the "Rig a more O" then they pay no problem. It is the way they handle their business with each other, and everyone else and that is why international rates are higher. Some countries do business this way.
I said all of this to say, one person's being screwed over is another's way of doing business and how they were taught. A 90 day warranty from me is always going to mean a helluva lot more than a 90 day warranty from bitmain for the exact same price of equipment. This is due to a cultural issue. It starts at the top of the business. It is how the business is structured.
Here is another comparison I think everyone will more likely agree with. Look at Sidehack and Novac and our lovely compac. Gekko Science were straight up about delivery. What they expected, and told us along the way when things did or didn't happen. Now I understand that detailed level of transparency cannot be achieved due to some business models, but the fact that they said when things were on time, or when something was late is huge compared to bitmain. Sidehack has it right. Take a warranty claim, or even an unknown and handle it head on. Drive it. OWN IT. In the end of the Compac we are lining up to throw money at Gekko Science for another project. Look at the trust he gained from this scene. Look how fast it will grow if they choose to do so.
Having those levels of morals is what I call living right, and sleeping well at night. It is night and day compared to many US companies as well. You never want your customer to feel they are out of options and have no choice but to do what you tell them. Eventually, they will have another option you are not providing. Every day look at how many people who would jump ship to an unknown manufacturer just because of the known at this moment. A US company could clean house with chips right now. However, you pay a bit more for that level of service as well. Not to mention the quality of the work, and quality control.
Someone answer this please. Would you pay $2,150 USD for a hashing / efficiency equivalent to the S7 from GekkoScience or order it for $1,800 USD from a company in China? I'm telling you it would not take long before everyone was paying more because the quality would be worlds apart. The service would be worlds apart. In the end you would make well over the price difference because your units would be worlds apart. The people who opt for the lower cost would only do so for a mining generation. When you look at how much different the cultural ideology is there is no contest.
From the top down makes or breaks any company. The example that is set by the ownership and management team. Taking care of your customers is number 1 in any business, but even more critical in repeat business. Am I thankful Bitmain continues to sell to the public at all, yes, yes I am, but that doesn't remove my expectations to receive what I purchased. I think the expectations of a 90 day warranty here in the US means something completely different than it does in many other parts of the world where they expect to roll the dice. We expect what we were told we would receive.
It is a hard pill to swallow for some of us. Me included. But I do not see any other plausible explanation when considering my personal experiences in this community and my work life. It all points to the same core values. You either have them, or you don't.
