New 4% Fee for ABCpool

[thatonegirlt]

So once again I am posting this here only because I can't post elsewhere.

Does anyone use ABCpool? I just recently started the other day and discovered via the forums that they would be introducing a 4% fee. On their website, it says that a 2% fee covers operational costs so I just don't understand why it needs to be so high. There are complaints on their forum as well but most people have the sort of "if you don't like it, then leave" attitude. But what if a good number of people don't like it and leave? Well that doesn't leave the pool very strong now does it... so why the high fee? I know other pools that are PPS that have no fee or at least a lower fee than 4%. (To be fair I also know higher fee pools, but I'm not in them for that reason).

Thoughts?

(I'd like to post my opinions there but I can't unfortunately.)

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[grue]

2% fee is the recommended donation amount if you want to cover the pool's operational costs.

edit:

NEWS: Fee to be re-introduced

How are you enjoying mining with ABCPool so far? It's thanks to you, our loyal miners that we have got this far! Without your constructive input, your kind words and of course your hashpower we would probably not have been here anymore.

As you may have seen on the account details page, running a pool is not free.

When ABCPool just started out 5 months ago, there was an introductory fee of 2% for a short time. ABCPool was not always stable in the early months, and we did not feel justified to charge you at that point. Therefore we soon lowered the fee to 0% and paid server costs, stale shares and invalid blocks completely out of our own pockets.  Now that ABCPool has proven to provide a solid mining experience we feel that the moment has come to re-introduce a fee, 4%, sometime in the first week of  2012.

Charging a fee is necessary to keep on providing you with the service quality you have come to expect from us. Any pool that does not charge a fee will eventually disappear, because it will inevitably cost the ops money. Many of you already donate 2%-4%. With the new scheme, you don't have to worry about others not paying for their part, because other users will pay the same..

The fee will enable us to pay for the server hosting, motivates us to keep on improving ABCPool, and helps to offset the risk we take by offering PPS rewards.

From your perspective, you might consider the fee to be a 'risk premium': by being payed per share you know exactly what you'll earn every day. How much is that worth to you? In addition we shield you from invalid blocks and stale shares.

In the new year we will continue to provide the best service we can, to ensure that you'll continue to enjoy mining at ABCPool!

Happy hashing,
MC & Chlorine

they will introduce the fees soon, but it's still fee free

[mc_lovin]

When BTC Guild went from 0% proportional to fee-for-PPS, I abandoned.  I hated how they worked so hard to become the #2-3 pool and then turned on the fee-switch to rape the users who were already working so hard. 

[Luis_GT]

Sometimes pps is better than proportional... It all diwn to the pools luck

[thatonegirlt]

Well PPS is always better unless a prop poll is having good luck. So with all things netural, I like to be in a PPS pool, which is why I wanted an alternative to ARS which is going down and ABCPool had no fee but now it's getting a fee too.

I always thought BTC Guild's 5% fee was crazy too. I wish ABC would implement something closer to operational cost. Maybe make it mandatory 2% but still leave people free to donate. I know there are people who would gladly give more just from the forum.

[P4man]

Well PPS is always better unless a prop poll is having good luck. So with all things netural, I like to be in a PPS pool,

That makes no sense at all.  X is always higher than Y - unless Y is higher. 
All PPS does is transfer the short/medium term risk of good or bad luck to the pool. But you will pay for that in the form of a fee, unless the pool operator likes risking bankruptcy.

In the longer term, ignoring fees, there is no difference between any of the payout systems, except for those that not hop proof. You will lose on those, as pool hoppers will be able to extract  more than their "fair"share.

[DoubleIcaras]

I wasn't aware the pool had activated the fee yet. This is a shame, I was just looking into this too.

[P4man]

I can only say, give bitminter a try; zero fees and merged mining. ATM there isnt even the option to donate.

It uses PPLNS, so there is a fairly high variability considering the smallish pool size, but that works both ways. Like yesterday when we got 3 or 4x the expected income in a lucky streak. Thats a nice way to start the new year .

[tf101]

Nice... I think I will move to bitminter.. I dont mind Slushes pool, but I wouldnt mind something a little smaller.

[LoupGaroux]

Don't like fees?

Don't want to cover the costs for the mining pool operators who create the pools?

Think 1, 3, 5 or even 10% off the top of YOUR mining income is too much?

The answer is simple-

Solo Mine.

Otherwise it is your option which operator to pay for his or her version of what it costs to be a part of their pool, or not.

[thatonegirlt]

I'm usually on TripleMining which somewhat recently became a PPLNS pool and I don't really like that method at all. Sure when they are lucky you get extra but when they aren't you get one day of mining regardless of how many days it takes to complete it. They are currently on hour 64 of their current block.. I find that way too much time to be making absolutely nothing. I just want a good PPS pool. I'm not saying I won't donate, I just don't like these high fees placed for no reason, or said to be at one level but really at another, based on a previously reply someone said.

[P4man]

. They are currently on hour 64 of their current block.. I find that way too much time to be making absolutely nothing.

Funny. My employer think its okay for me to work for 30 days and make absolutely nothing. Then all at once, I get a big paycheck. And I have to wait another 30 days. 

Seriously, whats the problem is not getting daily payments for mining? Do you get daily invoices for your electricity or what?

[chromeguy]

i am getting the best pay from triplemining - have tried a few so far.

they have only 2% fee, of which 1% goes back to a pool jackpot & the other 1% is distributed among minipool members
it doesn't hurt to try & there's a link in my sig if you are interested, join my minipool ^_^

[thatonegirlt]

. They are currently on hour 64 of their current block.. I find that way too much time to be making absolutely nothing.

Funny. My employer think its okay for me to work for 30 days and make absolutely nothing. Then all at once, I get a big paycheck. And I have to wait another 30 days. 

Seriously, whats the problem is not getting daily payments for mining? Do you get daily invoices for your electricity or what?

Except, in your example you are getting paid for all those days you did work. With PPLNS at 24 hours, you would be only getting paid the last 24 hours of work. So your comparison really doesn't work. I wouldn't mind not getting daily payments if atleast I knew I was getting something for all that time, but I would only get back a fraction of all the time put in.

[DeathAndTaxes]

. They are currently on hour 64 of their current block.. I find that way too much time to be making absolutely nothing.

Funny. My employer think its okay for me to work for 30 days and make absolutely nothing. Then all at once, I get a big paycheck. And I have to wait another 30 days. 

Seriously, whats the problem is not getting daily payments for mining? Do you get daily invoices for your electricity or what?

Except, in your example you are getting paid for all those days you did work. With PPLNS at 24 hours, you would be only getting paid the last 24 hours of work. So your comparison really doesn't work. I wouldn't mind not getting daily payments if atleast I knew I was getting something for all that time, but I would only get back a fraction of all the time put in.

That isn't how PPLNS works.  In the long run you make the same amount as any other fair method.

Of course I don't expect you to believe me.  You have 10 posts so obviously you got it all figured out.

[thatonegirlt]

That isn't how PPLNS works.  In the long run you make the same amount as any other fair method.

Of course I don't expect you to believe me.  You have 10 posts so obviously you got it all figured out.

From my experience on a PPLNS pool that is what I've seen.. But if you're done being sarcastic and you want to explain how it should work, I'd be all for learning.

[P4man]

If your experience was only a few days, that might explain. Unless those days happened to be the first days of january on bitminter, when you got your shares paid 6x. Have a look here:
https://bitminter.com/stats/rewards

Heck, even my current shares today are being paid 4x.

Yes, you will have shares that will not be paid. But you have an equal chance of your shares being paid multiple times. In the end, you make the same as any other fair system, and more than simple proportional systems because those are not hop proof, so pool hoppers take a disproportionate share of the profits, at your expense. There is a reason they came up with PPLNS

[thatonegirlt]

Yeah that makes sense. I guess it's just more long term. I usually mine on TripleMining and they continuously seem to have bad luck lately. They just had a block that took 70 hours to complete followed by one that took 92 hours to complete... so from that and other times mining it just seemed much more likely to have more long blocks and losing out rather than having that chance where shares got counted multiple times.

[P4man]

Its just human psychology; the bad moments (long blocks) last a long time, the good ones happen quickly and are easily forgotten. Math shows it averages out just the same.

BTW, that pool seems to have some good ideas (the mini pools) and some drop dead stupid one's, like the jackpot. Im considering creating a dozen throtteled cpu miners on separate accounts to chase the jackpot.

[thatonegirlt]

I could see it. Yeah I like TripleMining. If you join I would greatly appreciate having one of your miners in my minipool =D.
;
Also I'm a little confused on how BitMinter runs.. it says:

"Work is measured in proofs of work. Each proof of work is given a score equal to one divided by the difficulty at the time it was submitted. Proofs of work are grouped in shifts. A shift is completed when its total score passes 0.1."

So you mine until your estimated reward is .1 and that's the cut off instead of time based like 24 hours? I'm so confused.