Its really wrong that they are sending units to media outlets to promote more sales when customers who have had their money tied up for 6months sit and watch the difficulty go up and up. Really just shady, because random ArsTech readers will read this and order one not realizing that there is a GIANT backlog and "Shipping Now!" for BFL means "get in line and you might get one in 6 months, if we feel like it and dont go out of business first"
This ^
Make customers wait almost a year....then your first units go to PR/MEDIA outlets....fucking LAWLz!
Agreed, why try to promote more sales when (by their own admission) they have at least a 3 month backlog of orders even if they were to start shipping at full capacity today.
Makes me think that maybe they still have no intention of shipping orders. For example if they used up all the pre-order money on research/test chips etc.. and found that that in order to make a Jalapeno it costs them like $800 per unit, and they have been sell them for $250.
Solution, ship out the 30 or so working prototype units to media outlets for free. Try to bank as many new sales as possible; do a runner with the cash.
I really cannot see any above board reason why you'd ship freebee units to media outlets before customers who have been waiting almost a year...
Unfortunately it looks more and more like BFL might run.
Especially considering BFL is already 2000 BTC in the hole ( https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1217403 ) due to a bet.. They can't really operate as a legit business anymore.
"thanks for paying for us to develop the BFL ASICs."
"we're just going to mine them for a few years kthxbai"
