Topic: {BFL} WHAT THE!! ButterflyLads WONT deliver the Monarch Till...ONLY GOD KNOWs?:( - page 8. (Read 48000 times)

What BFL did in the long term, is damage all of the other bitcoin mining 
companies by reputation and inaction.

Let's put that into perspective a bit. 

BFL has a horrendous track record of customer service, and ethics aside, they 
put all of their customers, staff and their interests in a very tenuous position, 
and treated a great number of people badly in an attempt to douse fires and 
promote themselves.

And while any company can have setbacks, BFL failed by any standard to solve 
or help the customers they had in resolving disputes. The doubling of time 
from 6 months to 12 months to produce hardware, and the lack of communication 
with customers caused long-lasting damage

BFL during this time were uncontactable, customer service emails and phone 
calls took months to reply to requests or responses, they redefined the definition 
of terrible service. Their lack of ethics, unashamed and coercive communications, 
while being uncommunicative about their issues or faults.

Every standard of customer service you could imagine, BFL liaisons and employees 
unapologetically failed on every measurable level. in CS terms, they were doing 
everything wrong, fighting with customers, refusing refunds, ignoring customers, 
and denigrating their own products. 

To be fair to BFL, they had a good position in 2012 almost ~30,000 people gave 
BFL between $150 to $30,000, often in bitcoins, to take advantage of ASIC preorder 
discounts, expecting hardware in 6 months. 

BFL had a perfect opportunity and window of time for the release of ASIC hardware, 
but they also had competition from KnC and Avalon, and others, which was BFL's 
critical downfall, they completely ignored the public environment, and they utterly 
failed on every level to handle the customers.

Every month of delay after their promised release date, new ASIC competitors 
launched and released hardware to the market, and this caused exponential 
levels of panic. But, instead of launching hardware, or offering refunds, what 
BFL did, was publish and promote. 

When the first ASICs from Avalon came out, BFL was unavailable. And then, the 
BFL date slipped. and slipped. and slipped, and slipped again. Preorders promising 
a 3-6 month release, eventually took 11+ months, people waited over a year for 
Jalapeno or SC/mini/single/mini-rig ASIC hardware, and people got fidgety. 

By delaying and mishandling the customer base for over 6 months, every other 
competitor took advantage. Refunds were arranged, offered, refused. Some 
people panicked and lost their shit, abuse was taken and given, BFL scam 
warnings were everywhere, threats were veiled and launched, people were hostile.

There are generally speaking, no happy customers of BFL.

All in all, more than enough to be worthy of any awards you deem valid measures 
of awful, horrible, inept, etc. and any general failed attributes of business. 
Nobody trusts BFL and nobody would buy from BFL again willingly. BFL's ineptitude 
gave dozens of competitors a leg up in the marketplace.

Mining hardware is now compared in ROI, based upon how long it takes to get the 
hardware in days. 

Butterfly Labs is the greatest reason for this fear and trepidation. They were not the 
only company to fail to produce hardware, but they failed on such a large scale that 
it shaped the industry. 

ALL Mining Hardware is compared and calculated by how long it will take to arrive. 
A dollar to bitcoin return is more important than the price or the brand name, 
or GH/W power consumption, and if it can't make the standard, and few can, 
people won't invest or buy the hardware.

and while HashFast is also making the same mistakes, they really have shot 
themselves in the foot, the public press of "any day now" blog posts, forum 
updates and general alerts that were not balms for the enraged customer 
base, expecting progress, and getting delays is going to rile people.

Butterfly Labs absolutely deserve the reputation they have made for themselves. 
Full Stop.

As for bitcoin itself, it has hit the worst parts of the zeitgeist, and the downside 
of that is that several cultures and groups are using it to serve other interests, 
and that opens up speculation and opportunity for larceny, investment and fraud 
by contract. i.e. what everyone assumes is regular Business.

Yes, bitcoin is good for investment or transfer of goods, like holding gold, 
diamonds, stock, bonds or Amazon.com gift cards, etc. But the rampant 
speculation and volatility make it hard to really hold it as currency. And 
arguably, anyone asking you to believe that it holds integral or intrinsic value, 
is more than likely trying to scam you in order that they can profit from you, 
offering returns, holding BTC in storage or mining interests, by investing in their 
efforts or putting collateral into a sinking fund for production and early access. 
When the reality is, you're investing in their company without a share of the 
profit or getting into an early investment without any return.