arghhh. what a waste of time this is turning out to be.
folks, right up until July 10, i was minding my own business not having interacted with S3052 at all in any negative way. then, i get a pm from BadBear saying my thread bumps were going to be limited to once per day. naturally, i asked why. he said "someone" had complained. i asked who. he said he wouldn't tell me. well, it was S3052. ok fine. i complied even though i know of at least one of my subs complained about the new restriction to BadBear.
then on July 19, S3052 enters my thread and says this:
"I must say that I find it unfair practice to bump that thread so frequently. If intended or not, it provides an advantage to others, including me. I have refrained from doing that regularly, but we only have two choices:
Get a moderator to intervene with cypher docs practice or if not, we will likely see all analysts bumping their threads more and more.
I don't want that and I also don't think we should ask people to delete all their posts just to avoid this issue. This is just my honest pov."my question to S3052 is why didn't he admit he'd already complained to a moderator, at least 9d or more prior? if he'd had taken the time to notice, i had already been limiting my bumps to once a day since July 10 so at that point his perception of the problem was moot. i actually understand how the bumping might irritate him, which is why i immediately complied and did not make a stink of it.
Thanks for those questions. They are absolutely valid :
1) on the timing of talking about this: i have seen cypherdoc changing his position multiple times: first he tells me 1.5 years ago he wants to cover other markets ex bitcoin . Second he starts covering bitcoins some months later . Third he says about 3-6 months ago that he will never change his 2.5 BTC per month pricing even if he loses all subscribers as it is only his hobby . Fourth some weeks ago he drops his price which shows that he changed his mind and gets into the competitive position again. It is because of that recent development that I am also stepping up competitiveness.
S3052, ppl want me to cover Bitcoin. they've specifically asked me to cover Bitcoin. i'm sorry you got the impression that i would never, ever cover Bitcoin. this really shouldn't be that big a problem for you to carry out such "highly competitive" actions against me. the marketplace is plenty big enough and we both aren't suffering from the competition. at least i know i'm not.
2) on the phone conversation: no one can prove what was said and like you said it is a great learning for me. I was too naive believing into what he said holds true. Believe me I am not that stupid. If I had the perception that he would start doing a paid bitcoin analysis service like me I would never have agreed to talk with h on the phone.
Anyway I am not fearing competition as we at DCR continue to serve our clients in the best way we can and we want to keep extending our clear market leadership as most followed service.
pray tell, what is it specifically in that Skype conversation is it that you think you revealed to me that was critical to getting my letter get off the ground? i specifically want an answer to this. you make it sound like you revealed some sort of proprietary info to me that i stole. everything about my letter, from the OP, to the structure of the updates, to this thread, and it's price is totally different from how you do yours. my recollection of that conversation is that i wanted your perspective on what it was like to deal in a BTC only business and the risks involved in that. certainly i valued your opinion and it was helpful. in fact, i thought we had hit it off from a friendly standpoint and never thought you'd take my subsequent inclusion of Bitcoin services in my letter so negatively. and mind you, i never made any promises or made an agreement with you that i wouldn't include Bitcoin. in fact, during that Skype conversation you offered to bring me into the umbrella of your newsletter as a stock and bond analyst. i thought that was very generous and nice.
most of the conversation revolved around how we might accomplish that.
Anyway, as I said it is my fault but I am still disappointed about cypherdocs practices . The world is dishonest and money / capitalism rules everything - very unfortunately.
On the positive side, bitcoin P2P system is honest and that is why I continue to support it. I love bitcoin.
since our original Skype conversation, at least twice and maybe 3x,
you have offered to join forces with me again in a combined newsletter. the most recent one being around Dec 2012 iirc. those overtures are totally inconsistent with what i'm getting here which confuses me. the reason i haven't accepted is that, and here is where it pains me to say this, i perceive an insecurity in you. by that i mean that everytime i've mentioned some significant event that happened in the marketplace during our three Skype conversations, you've had to jump in and say "i called that". and this is in front of Eric, too. i see it in your thread as well. statements like "as predicted" or "as called". you never mention any of the misses. you do miss calls don't you? it's unnecessary and imo gives the impression of insecurity or a desire to one up others. i see it in the title of your thread "#1 Most Popular". waveaddict complained to you about this as have i yet you continue to use it. how can you prove this and what objective measures do you use? even in the post here that i'm responding to, you end it by making this declaration of "we want to keep extending our clear market leadership as most followed service". what proof do you have? is this misleading and shameless advertising?
in this thread, i don't do that even when i'm right back when i was bumping. i'll be the first to admit that i am probably the most sensitive to how you are acting and perhaps biased in my observations, so take this with a grain of salt and others can make their own judgments. but it does bother me.
as for the 2.5 to 1.0 BTC thing. everyone should note that i never told S3052 this directly. i did tell Eric, his partner/biller, at the conference that the plan back in May was to wind the letter down by the end of year. i find it to be a tremendous amount of work and i do it more out of passion than a need. sure enough, maintaining the cost @ 2.5 was too high and subscribership was dwindling. the mistake i made was accepting certain subs that wanted to pay out for an entire year into 2014 or until the end of this year which they actually did. so i was faced with putting all this work into a letter that would be subscribed to by a tiny number of dedicated subs who didn't care about the price of 2.5 BTC/mo. instead of putting all that work in for just a few, i decided just last month to lower the price to attract more subs to make it worth my time and allow me to spread my insight. it's worked and i'm back to a nice stable of subs that value my work and make it worth the time i put into it. and yes, i immediately refunded the guy who paid 2.5/mo to the end of this year. i've compensated by lowering the pressure on myself to publish every day, hence Vokain's comment on decreased quality. @Vokain: if you'll notice if you look carefully, i'm trying to publish when there is something significant to say, not just multiple times daily b/c that was what i was doing in the past. this takes the pressure off and makes it more pleasurable. you of all ppl, know just how busy i am. also as a result of the new pricing @ 1BTC/mo, i now have someone who prepaid a year out to July 2014 so it looks like i'm not going anywhere.
S3052, i think you are being way too harsh with this. up until one month, i still considered you my friend and a fully competent and ethical competitor. i still think we have a chance to re-establish that connection we once had. but it is totally up to you to stop these underhanded techniques to compete.