its disingenuous to bash them when prices go up because they also go down.
I agree with you. If the price goes up, it just is.
The problem is how it was done. Bitmain made multiple poor choices today.
If they wanted to increase the price, after the holiday break they simply needed to open sales again at the $419. There would have been grousing here, but it would be short lived.
The problem THEY created was by opening sales back up at $320, THEN jumping the price, and then increasing the price AGAIN, all in the same day. If they would have increased the prices in stages over the coming weeks, it would have been a bit more tolerated.
The extra fuel to this fire today, is they even told us here, that they did it because they just found out another manufacturer isn't going to deliver any mining product shortly! Not because the costs of goods increased. Not because any costs increased.
How about this:
The price of gas at the pump changes. It's a fact of life. Would you not scream foul, if while you were pumping the gas, they increased the price of the gas you're putting in your car? Wouldn't you scream bloody foul, if that increase was 20%?
Now the same analogy, if on your way to work one morning, you notice that your favorite petrol station just opened up after being closed for 3 weeks and you think to yourself, you should fill the 30 gallon tank of your big truck (ant farm) on the way home. Then during lunch, one of your workmates tell you that your same favorite station just increased the gas prices by 20%! Wouldn't you scream bloody foul? Oh then, on your way home, you stop to fill your tank anyway, only to find out that the price made another increase - a total of more than 30% from what it was in the morning.
So then you decide to go inside the gas station and ask, why the huge increase. The guy just gives you a bunch of smiley faces, as you pose ideas as to why. Then finally the man tells you, he just found out that the other gas stations in the area, won't be able sell during the next few months and that is why he raised the price so vigorously through the day.
Do you think it would be disingenuous to be extremely upset with your favorite gas station, that you've supported for a relatively long time?
Bitmain has a lot of repairing to do. They not only bit the hands that feed them, they slapped the golden goose (the one that supported them while they've wonderfully improved their products, to finally get them something they felt was good enough to now build their own mega-farm). Based on their history of good products, I hope they do see the wisdom in making some huge steps in customer relations reparation.
It is their right to price as they choose. It is their right to do it, exactly as they did today. Just as it is our right to scream bloody hell about it.
As the day has wore on about this pricing event today, the business owner in me has been trying hard to cut them some slack. I also have a pretty good BS meter. Processing through the logic of facts as I wrote this post, it is now very clear to me, that they really messed up today, in a lot of ways. The multiple price changes in a single day, is a lot more than just a slap in the face. Their explanation is even more abhorrent. The switch to pre-orders is also a big change (even if it is not labeled a pre-order). Even the comment about not selling S3++ except locally, is a slam. If they think they're going to sell out of the increased price S5's, why not sell the S++? Let the sales tell them if it is too high of a price.
Dogie, if you do work for Bitmain, you won't be able to publicly accept this. If you don't work for Bitmain, please take a long pause and think about it all and you should realize that they just told us all to sod off. I just realized it while writing this, so slowly on my iPad. (Lots of time to think about it, nearly an hour).
I bought S5's in January at $319 each. A week+ later, they made a (single) price increase to $370. There was weeping & wailing here, but not like today. Not to mention the logic was finally made, the price of BTC was down, so the price needed to go up for them to cover their costs. Hmmm, today BTC is about 50% higher than when the price in January went to $370. Shouldn't that logic say, that with the price of BTC today the miner price should be lower? Oh wait, they did do that, when they opened at the lower $320 price today.
They figured the same thing, until that magic intelligence came in that told them that now they can charge whatever they want.
And they did.