Topic: Block Erupter USB Sales [Temporarily Out of Stock] - page 13. (Read 93208 times)

It's like friedcat/AM is supposed to be a ruthless profit-maker and a soft feel-good "community leader" at the same time. You can't have it both ways.

Also note that if you're a shareholder who's holding more than pocket change in shares, your USB purchases were subsidized by your weekly dividends.

On the one hand, we have all these shareholders saying "I hope blade/usb sales were up this week!" and rejoicing at record-high dividends, but then on the other hand, we have the same people crying about ROI on the miners that they chose to buy.

I wonder how many of the people crying about the price drop were cheering the past few Wednesdays?

Now you're comparing different things.
If the car makes gasoline for you it would be related to it.

 While I completely understand your irritation with the recent pricing adjustment (I share your frustration), I don't believe this is a fair comparison to make, all things considered.

For the record I never bought any because Friedcat's pricing policy was out of whack from the very first sale.  He never offered volume discounts which makes no sense if you are trying to get a product into the market.  Now he has pissed off the community who are ranting through the last several pages of this epic lesson in how not to price things.

To the guys that want to point to difficulty... the price of a car does not change related to the price of gasoline.  (And cars are often used 'to make money').  So your point is invalid.  

Pricing is a well understood concept taught in universities all around the world, right next to the class on brand building.  Friedcat and company would do very well to take either class.

Use a simple rule of thumb:

If you cannot recover your investment in BTC in 30 to 45 days considering constant difficulty from the moment you deploy your hardware, the most likely scenario with current difficulty projections is that you won't be able recover your investment at all.

Considering that rule of thumb, the Block Erupter were overpriced when they were launched and they are still overpriced now. Same thing is valid for the blades.

Still, the market is willing to pay and Friedcat had been flawlessly squeezing the maximum profit from the market. Kudos to Friedcat, flawless management and a great service to his shareholders.

If it's a business for you, it's your fault for not considering they would lower the price if difficulty rises.
That's obvious.

Edit: Is true that they should lower the price every weak, because this is really hard for the buyers last week. But I feel like they're overloaded with work and it is imposible for them.

This is not true, because you're only looking BTC price. You need to look Ghs/difficulty price, and now they're at the same price when they started selling them.

Of course if the difficulty keeps rising you will see them @0.5 , @0.1 and less. Also, in the future the could be overpriced @0.05 if difficulty is really really high.

So, no point speaking about price without caring about current difficulty.

It's not the same, you buy TV and electronical componentes to satisfy what you needs, it's not a business.
 You buy a mining hardware to "make something profit" Cause as Asicminer, they sell for BTC for a miner to mine BTC.I don't see a problem at drop prices, but the Block Erupter USB only mines ~0.01 a day.
Only in one month the price drops 50%, one month (u make 0.3 BTC) plus delays you may made 0.1~0.2BTC. they should drop price with a fair timeline.Something like this drop os prices is like they don't really care about the earliest customers. And again BTC is a business cause that make you "money"(coin), electronical componentes like PC,TV,PHONES are not the same.

I don't see how friedcat did anything wrong - in any case the blame is all on you, for purchasing overpriced hardware and now feeling butthurt because prices are starting to be adjusted to reality. This was an expected situation, the forum is full of posts of people saying they would buy some "when they dropped in price". From the very first day. And FYI, prices for these USB things will drop more. Only a few customers bought at the initial 2BTC price. More people will buy at 1BTC. Even more at 0.5BTC, etc. You are a fool if you do not realize that's what is going to happen, and it will be the best both for the market and for ASICMiner shareholders. In fact, quote me on this: we will see these things below 1BTC very soon.

Look at it this way: If you thought that at 2BTC they were a good investment, better for you - at 1BTC they are an even better investment!

Why blaming so much to friedcat?
If difficulty doubles up, he needs to discount 50%. And so on. Because mining hardware price is based in mining difficulty.

Is the same when you buy a new TV. But with the difference that now difficulty is growing really fast, 2 weeks in the bitcoin world is like 1-2 years in the normal world.

Nothing new.

Buyer, if you're talking stupid business practice, then ASICMINER will lose money -- they should be pitied, not scolded.  There can not be any talk of intentional fuckery.
If, OTOH, they stand to make more money by dropping the price, it is sound business & should be applauded by the this community as such.  Just ask Viceroy.

+1 (but without the swearing )

Well, not really. First Avalon batches were "cheap" because they were preorders with months in lead time, while Asicminer was expensive because the delivery is immediate.

And still, avalon batch #3 is still a pre-order with months in lead time and its very expensive.

That said, both Block Erupter USB and blades will drop A LOT. The only way to profit from ASICMiner hardware is to count on the Greater Fool Theory.

They will, just wait 1 month and see the price maybe 0.2BTC each, a lesson to learn,  avalon products will rise , asicminer products will drop, early adopters should go Avalon, Asicminer products just wait a month or two to see a good drop price. Blades will drop 50% just wait.

i don't understand why you post shit like this - when the price was at 1.99 we had a different difficult than we have now
and everybody who wanted to have a usb miner in hand made a good deal with this. some buyers sold their sticks for twice
this price in dollars at ebay and made a great deal... just because you are pissed off does not mean friedcat fucked the
community. as a longtime shareholder of asicminer i can say this was the best investment in my whole life - FRIEDCAT 4 PRESIDENT !!!!!!!!

I'm ashamed that you don't get the obvious... YES THE VENDOR SETS THE PRICE.  When is the last time you went to buy a brand new (insert favorite technology here) and you got to pick the price?  That is just not the way retail sales works. EVERY manufacturer sets a manufacturers suggested retail price (msrp) and that is the price used by the ENTIRE distribution channel to caculate each players profit along the distribution chain.

And when the Vendor sets a price and then days later cuts the price in half then the CUSTOMER GETS PISSED.

How is this not OBVIOUS?  My young son understands and he can barely read.

Friedcat and company FUCKED the community.  Read through the thread and you will quickly see ALL the PEOPLE who are FORMER customers of ASICMINER products who just wrote, right here in this forum, that they will NEVER buy another ASICMINER product becuase the VENDOR DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO PRICE PRODUCTS and the VENDOR HAS A HISTORY OF SCREWING EARLY ADOPTERS.

How is this not obviously STUPID BUSINESS PRACTICE?  

Seriously, is this how big business operates?  NO?  Why?  BECAUSE THEY UNDERSTAND THE COST OF LOSING CUSTOMERS OVER STUPID POLICY DECISIONS can be calculated in REAL DOLLARS.  At this point any reasonable person will conclude that ASICMINERS GREEED is larger than ASICMINER and the STUPID PRICING policy is driving customers away.  Count all the lost sales and goodwill destroyed by ASICMININERS desire to eek out a few extra coins today.  Instead they COULD HAVE eeked out our coins for years and years and years if they had treated the community with a modicum of respect.



Instead Friedcat has just become Inaba2.0

Not all forum members have enough posts to be able to PM the OP. Consider adding an additional contact method for those people.

Source for that figures?

This is the info I have:


In any case I doubt friedcat has shipped more than 10,000 of those, so you are certainly out by orders of magnitude. Just calculate the hashrate of 3 million Block Erutpter USB:

336MH/s * 3,000,000 = 1,008TH/s. Compare it to the 170TH/s we currently have on the network.

Or perhaps you have a little more smarts, and do like Intel and other manufacturers in the electronics business do, or Pfizer and Merck do in the pharmaceutical business, or Dow does in the chemical business - introduce new items at just as much as you calculate the market will bear to recover your R&D costs and maximize your early profits, then drop the price when either the competition catches up, or you introduce a new product line.

So long as BFL Jalepenos aren't being shipped from off-the-shelf, and there is no other competition, Friedcat can set the price at whatever the market will bear and whatever price maximizes his profits -  which he did, and continues to do.  His profit margins are still over 90%, and he's planning to ship 6 million of these at the lower price, as opposed to the 2 million he sold at the higher price.  And when competition shows up, he'll either just cut the price again, since he has economy-of-scale behind him where a competitor wouldn't, or just quit making them completely if he feels the profit margins have gotten too compressed.

And you really don't get the fact that the chips he uses are binned.  The A-grade chips go into his current generation of blades, and, rather than discarding the rejects, he gets to sell the B-grade and lower parts for massive profits since the buyers of these devices don't care about the few % of hardware errors the lower grade chips end up producing.

Your theory is all well and good, but you have obviously never run an actual business before.  Friedcat is as close to being a sales and marketing genius as I have ever seen in the Bitcoin area.