And people complain because they are losing money......never ceases to amaze. If you didn't see this coming, you have no one to blame but yourself. It has been covered extensively for months..(almost a year at this point) that this would happen.
The real kick in the teeth is that people have been waiting for many months (or over a year) for hardware that was promised to have shipped long ago - when it was going to be worth something! This difficulty rise is just pouring salt in the wounds for many people...
Alas, the ability to print money is relegated to the rich yet again... go figure.
Another way of looking at that is it was THEFT. A company had produced the unit, mined with it and then shipped 12 months late by any definition that is theft.
I think that it is everything but not theft. It should be fraud. They use the money of the customers to mine bitcoins, they do not communicate on a trustworthy base (they throw smoke grenades all the time) and eventually, when the mining devices are not cost-sufficient anymore in regions where electricity does cost something, they ship it, having been able to consumate all financial benefits but still giving the customer all the risks.
Fraud. Coldly calculated, they tell customers false facts (those facts are primarily for preventing the customer to withdraw their order). Unfortunately, they are still given a forum and opportunity to make advertising on bitcointalk.org - but still i understand what implications exist when locking out particular corporates based on accusations and not real, solid jurisdictions. But after seeing the behaviour of certain BFL people, i am pretty sure, that it will not take too long until the legal jackhammer will hit BFL.
Nicely said, but they already make tons of money which they can just close down the company and run away and its pretty hard to hit them legally cause its Bitcoin.
Oh, thanks for the flowers.
---- Care, Offtopic: BFL Rant following ----
What is needed is a change on the mining-producer-field. BUT: it is almost impossible for decent producers to make a market entry. Why is that so?
To produce devices, you need to have a starting capital of some millions. Nobody would give this capital as a private person, because why would you invest millions of your own money in a high-risk field? U need to get an investor - that most likely will not give his capital for a production of devices that are used solely for the mining of a currency that might completely vanish in the next weeks/months.
So, the preorder-technique is an important feature, because the customer takes solely the risks of bitcoin crashing, destruction of the hardware etc. But the customer may also take the chances, he is able to mine bitcoins and , given the case that the BTC price rises, he will hit a decent profit.
So, go to hardware producers and talk to them. They will be able to give you very, very vague (and certainly not future-promising) specs, which will most likely not motivate investors.
You are one of an ever growing number of hardware producers, you have to make a clear, open communication, otherwise you are not trustworthy. So you will communicate to you customers that the "time to shipment" is going to be 12-18 months. Who of you guys would order?
Furthermore, BFL actually ships some devices, allowing them to make small development leaps and therefor offer better specfications. Althoug we are using words like "vaporware" - do you think, the classic potential customer can decide between vaporware specifics and realistic specifics from trustworthy producers?
Keep in mind we are talking about a german producer, and in Germany, due to a decent law, you have to have a deposit guarantee - meaning if a customer pays 200 Euros for a product that is NOT EXISTENT (preorder), you also have to deposit the same amount, with factor 1,1 - 1,4 (in the worst case, 1.4*200 which is 280 Euros.) So you would have a legal guarantee that your deposited money is not being embezzled.
Coming back to what BFL does: they take the customer's money and have the benefits (mining BTC all the time..... since they are the producers, they have the shortest "time to market" any miner could have). The behaviour is, being screened under several perspectives, just SNAFU:
- Legal: Fraud. The real facts and communicated facts do not match.
- Economical: Ripoff. The customer takes the risk, the corporate takes the gain. Ever heard of a Win Win Situation?`
- Sustainability = near 0. I mean Lol, did they already hear about it?
- Customer Relationship Management: In Munich we have a saying: Every day, a stupid person walks through the Sendlinger Tor (famous place in Munich) - you just have to find them. Looks like this is the standard approach of BFL. Why even bother with the current changing behaviour of customers that obviously happens (The market makes his own decisions and products - HELLO we talk about a crowd-created currency.....)? Bitcoin does in my eyes gives so much more potential, let alone speak of the target audience.
- Marketing: Just Great. Best thing you can do is take a VERY important person of your corporate (like COO) and then make him insult your target audience that brings up JUSTIFIED arguments. Always works.
I hope i do not get banned for off-topic ranting - but the rant is strong in me - sorry for that.
