May I ask what is wrong with wanting to be the *official* US reseller? This is how channel distribution works, the manufacturer relies on a channel (group of partners, generally arranged by geography) so that they only have to ship to a trusted partner and the trusted partner handles individual sales.
IMHO, this would be a problem is Kosmo went and purchased 1000 at the .89BTC price and then sold them for 1.5BTC. But he's been reliable and honorable in all group orders (I research anyone I'm gonna send BTC to, he passed the test).
Reliable hardware service is something BTC needs. Right now we're all throwing money at KNC shares and BitFury pre-orders not knowing if the hardware exists / will work. A lot of people poured money into BFL and they're finally shipping. Not even gonna touch on Avalon and whatever has happened around batch 2. And AM seems to have realized that offering hardware at a decent price point for the current dif/share rates makes sense, especially when you can grab all the GPU crowd before they shut down and turn off their BTC operations, or worse move to pump-n-dump coin of the week which only makes a joke of the ideal behind BTC.
But if I know I can reliably order hardware from someone I've ordered from before, I'm happy. No pissing BTC into the wind hoping magical hashing boxes show up.
BTW- Full disclosure, ordered 10 erupters from Kosmo that are arriving today, ordered 15 from Eleuthria @ BTCGuild (simply a question of who had or would have inventory). I trust both of these folks with how much coin I've thrown their way, so I'd be happy to see either or both of them have some exclusive deal so we can order AM hardware in the US with greater reliability. I've got nothing against the Chinese despite seeing that their country happens to have the manufacturing capacity to make or break BTC right now, but I'd much rather order from the US and have my item shipped from the US than deal with some of the customs issues I've read about recently.
IMHO, this would be a problem is Kosmo went and purchased 1000 at the .89BTC price and then sold them for 1.5BTC. But he's been reliable and honorable in all group orders (I research anyone I'm gonna send BTC to, he passed the test).
Reliable hardware service is something BTC needs. Right now we're all throwing money at KNC shares and BitFury pre-orders not knowing if the hardware exists / will work. A lot of people poured money into BFL and they're finally shipping. Not even gonna touch on Avalon and whatever has happened around batch 2. And AM seems to have realized that offering hardware at a decent price point for the current dif/share rates makes sense, especially when you can grab all the GPU crowd before they shut down and turn off their BTC operations, or worse move to pump-n-dump coin of the week which only makes a joke of the ideal behind BTC.
But if I know I can reliably order hardware from someone I've ordered from before, I'm happy. No pissing BTC into the wind hoping magical hashing boxes show up.
BTW- Full disclosure, ordered 10 erupters from Kosmo that are arriving today, ordered 15 from Eleuthria @ BTCGuild (simply a question of who had or would have inventory). I trust both of these folks with how much coin I've thrown their way, so I'd be happy to see either or both of them have some exclusive deal so we can order AM hardware in the US with greater reliability. I've got nothing against the Chinese despite seeing that their country happens to have the manufacturing capacity to make or break BTC right now, but I'd much rather order from the US and have my item shipped from the US than deal with some of the customs issues I've read about recently.
What would be really great is if he just sent a few hundred thousand of them to Amazon to sell for him.
