I am not speaking with any first hand knowledge, I'm just speculating... but I think the price increase came from a discussion I had with BFL in regards to the current state of Bitcoin vs some factors relating to used GPU sales...
The possible hashrate decrease I think
I agree and also pointed out in an email to them something along the lines of the price 'not being in the spirit of sound capitalism'...
What you mean that old adage of figuring out the cost of production then putting fair markup on it is not good enough anymore, that used to be the definition of sound capitalism until the fucking MBAs and their price points got involved with their everyone must make sure to gouge as much as possible from the customer.
Fair markup is what the market will accept. For some products that might be 1% for others it might be 70%.
If this product is real then selling it cheaper just because you can was never "sound capitalism".
If the market would accept $700 and you are limited to 100 initial units why would you sell it for a nickle less than $700. To make less money? To take more risk for no increased gain. Obviously if the market doesn't accept $700 they would need to lower the price. If their cost was $3,500 per board well the market likely isn't going to accept that even with 0% markup.
Not sure what "old adage" you are talking about but cost of production + some % has never been the market value for anything. My cost of production for a bag of aged dog poop (70% pure) is $3.95. Will you consider it a good deal at only 1% markup? If I can mine gold @ $600 an ounce would you consider it a bad deal if I sold you as much as you want for 100% markup?
Since you are passing on the "ripoff" gold @ $1200 an ounce let me know how many tons of aged dog poop you would like. I accept BTC or Paypal.