Still Believe In Craig & Ed Despite The Recent Revalations

[andmaz]

Just needs to be said I think.

Yes queue jumpers not ideal but only 100 (I believe) and this must all be a nightmare for Craig and ED at the moment.

Lets look at the positives for now.

 

[Trip]

I don't know about ED because there hasn't been an official announcement about it yet and I have no idea if he agrees with what Craig did or not? Same goes for the rest of the devs.

Craig's a [mod edit - While your freedom to think of Craig as an anthropomorphic phallus is not being challenged, you will understand that the board rules do not allow name calling.]

 

[snostrebla]

I still believe (insert macro image of pandora with I want to believe caption).

If I had the cash, I'd queue jump, but I've already invested 400+ US on it with shipping/tv-out cable but school, car and food come first. Honestly, if about 1600 have been produced (quoting current status page from a week ago), and I'm roughly in the 2300~2400 range (queue means nothing anyway), I don't think it'd be worth it for me to jump queue at all unless something stalls it like the cases needed to make my pandora get lost at sea or something. I've had plenty of opportunities to jump queue, with the multiple waves of one nubbers, refurbs, and instants, would still prefer a pandora with a good...everything. It'd just be terrible to wait for something so long, only to send it back immediately.

I still have tremendous faith that I will receive my pandora eventually, and I'm actually more worried that I don't know what I'll do when I have it. Maybe I'll order something else online that I need now, and request to have it shipped a year later just because I'm so accustomed to waiting now.

I still believe in the OP team, if this was a sociology experiment, they'd be getting tremendous amounts of data.

Thank you OP team, habeeb it.

 

[u9i]

Eh, what has happened?

 

[Caine]

Eh, what has happened?

Read about it here.

Short summary:
Craig is offering higher priced Pandoras which will ship within 7 days skipping the existing pre-order queue. The extra funds are used to hire additional employees for assembly which should double production speed. As far as I understood, the higher priced Pandoras are limited in number such that the existing queue will will not be delayed but delivered more quickly instead.

Many people are pissed about this as some people will be receiving units before them without having to have waited. Other people are pissed because they don't believe it will actually speed up delivery of the existing queue.

Time will tell I suppose. I don't care either way as I already have my unit.

 

[gruso]

Eh, what has happened?

'Recent developments' makes it sound like one of them was caught having sex with a goat. But no, andmaz is just referring to the instant $500 Pandoras.

I know it feels like shit for people still waiting, to see queue jumpers invited in. We've all been through it, watching one nubbers and ebay sales go out while production stagnated last year. But I think we should give them week or two to demonstrate that it has worked. They already have the labour at hand thanks to the cash injection, and there is supposed to be a production spike (for everyone) this week as a direct result.

FYI EvilDragon is on board, it's not just some crazy Craig scheme. A couple of his posts on the matter are below. I know it's easy to demonise Craig, but all of them need the income and want to the project to survive!

Spoiler

My suggestion is this, for those who want to, the ability to get a Pandora within 7 days for $500.

After reading this thread there is one question that springs to mind. What about those who don't want to? If you're willing to wait for your unit can you still pre order it at the original price?
Or is $500 now the actual cost of the Pandora?

The current preorders won't change the price, you an upgrade if you want, but if you paid 250 USD, you will still get it for 250 USD within the next weeks / months (depending on when you preordered).

In the long run Craig wants to eliminate preorders completely AFAIK (would also make sense in my opinion), though I don't know if the price will stay or change. That really depends on labour cost, the demand, etc.
The more profit there is, the more we can use to pay the software team, get new users, improve stuff, etc., so it will probably need to be balanced.

Not only has the price increased, Craig is selling our pre-order units for the higher price and shipping within seven days while we continue to wait.

The people who pre-ordered financed the project and should get their units first. It's totally unfair to screw the people who made this project happen, and make no mistake, the people who fronted the money made it happen. Noting happens without capital.

Well, as mentioned above, with the extra money for the express-Pandoras, Craig hires more workers to speed up the overall assembly.
So this speeds up the assembly for the ones who preordered as well. You will get your unit faster and without paying as much as those express-guys.

 

[Trip]

Then they are all as bad as each other. What they've done goes against everything OpenPandora was suppose to stand for.
I don't care why they did it, it doesn't make it any less wrong.

Those boards were built for and paid for by the people who pre-ordered over 2 years ago. Taking them without the permission of those people is stealing.

Anyone who believes otherwise has a fucked up sense of morality.

 

[Phawx]

do thieves give your money back when you ask for it?

I'm sure if you did it in a threatening tone, there is a chance they would.

@tripmonkey

I feel for you man. It is a messed up situation. But if they need money, be it to stay afloat, hire more people to accelerate everything, or just to give some breathing room for sanity, what else are you going to do? I know waiting sucks. But it IS worth it. I've been using my Pandora as my sole means for gaming. Since I am a father now, console gaming has gone by the wayside and I play mostly on my commute and during my lunch break.

Instead of thinking that this is a betrayal, think of it as hope for the project. I hope you stay with it. Again, it is an awesome device.

 

[Esn]

Those boards were built for and paid for by the people who pre-ordered over 2 years ago. Taking them without the permission of those people is stealing.

Anyone who believes otherwise has a fucked up sense of morality.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.



Anyway, methinks you're simplifying things a bit too much. Did you know that there aren't actually 12 notes in Western notation?

 

[DaveC]

do thieves give your money back when you ask for it?

I'm sure if you did it in a threatening tone, there is a chance they would.

Not where I come from( USA, AKA "the wild west"), they would just shoot you in the face.

 

[Esn]

do thieves give your money back when you ask for it?

I'm sure if you did it in a threatening tone, there is a chance they would.

Not where I come from( USA, AKA "the wild west"), they would just shoot you in the face.

Of course, that's what freedom is all about. In the US, I'd have the freedom to be shot in the face. Where I live, though, that freedom is about 8 times smaller.

 

[EvilDragon]

Those boards were built for and paid for by the people who pre-ordered over 2 years ago. Taking them without the permission of those people is stealing.

Well, Craig also invested half a million into the whole Pandora project from his private money.
Each Pandora did cost more than 400 USD per unit (thanks to stupid things like broken nubs, etc. that happened).
Also, part and production was higher as planned - and at the very beginning, we told you that you are only paying for the parts and production for YOUR unit.
As it turned out to be more expensive, should we also ask for the additional money from you?

We can either continue to build the units as we are right now - with a small team to assemble and boards stockpiling (as they can't build them fast enough) or hire more guys and NOT stockpile the PCBs but rather ship out the units faster. However, that won't work without money, as those guys want to be paid. And stockpiling those boards will slow down everything later on.

I perfectly know this is not the best situation we're all in here - but try to see it like this:

* You get the unit for 200 USD less than it did cost - and that is NOT including all the time and money we invested in the development. We are paying half of your unit.
* You can easily get a full refund if you want and are not happy with that
* You do NOT have to pay more to get the unit! Future batches HAVE to be more expensive than the initial 250 USD, the production cost is MUCH higher.

So yeah, it does not delay you getting your unit. We got the parts for Batch 2 already, so what we're shipping here is basically part for batch 2 which is only possible for a higher amount of money which enables us to hire workers.

If we don't do this, the boards would keep piling in UK and you wouldn't get them any faster, but Batch 2 would be delayed.

 

[Jumpman]

Ed, Please do me a favor........Stop explaining the teams situation to those who can't or won't understand the financial situation you are all in!

Your wasting time and breath, and their opinions will never change. If customers want a refund, just let them get one, and move on. This situation has been expalined to DEATH for several days, and we are still seeing folks who have problems. You have got to draw the line in the sand somewhere, and I say here is the time. I'm sure you can find more constructive uses for your valuable time, than this 3 ring circus.

Chris

 

[Esn]

I disagree, jumpman, I think it can do some good. I guess ED is optimistic (like I am) in not just writing people off and believing that many of the problems in the world are due to misunderstandings, not irreconcilable differences.

Also worth remembering is that for every one person who speaks out in a forum, there are more who are watching and may be on the fence, so a conversation like this is never just between two people.

 

[carlgeorge]

Ed, Please do me a favor........Stop explaining the teams situation to those who can't or won't understand the financial situation you are all in!

Your wasting time and breath, and their opinions will never change. If customers want a refund, just let them get one, and move on. This situation has been expalined to DEATH for several days, and we are still seeing folks who have problems. You have got to draw the line in the sand somewhere, and I say here is the time. I'm sure you can find more constructive uses for your valuable time, than this 3 ring circus.

Chris

I disagree. This is the first time I've seen this info. Just because you've seen it many times doesn't mean everyone has.

 

[renegadechic]

wow this thread just makes me wanna go "u mad?" ha!

i like that some people are dumb enough to think principles beyond reason are worth sticking to even at the expense of the entire project.

i mean sure it'll be awesome if you get your pandora 5 units faster, but if the pandora just dies then a huge reason for owning a pandora dies with it. the device is only going to be as useful and as bountiful as the community that exists alongside it and if pandoras stop being able to be made then anyone who invested at all also suffers. have a bit of perspective before you start being offensive. also, its not exactly stealing when you can get your money back whenever you like.

 

[torpor]

What I don't understand is why Craig&Co don't just open the door for investors to come and play their part? I mean, I could probably arrange a fairly decent sum of cash if there was actually a way to invest in OP Ltd., somehow ..

 

[neko]

What I don't understand is why Craig&Co don't just open the door for investors to come and play their part? I mean, I could probably arrange a fairly decent sum of cash if there was actually a way to invest in OP Ltd., somehow ..

Craig did, but it involves lawyers and paperwork and stuff. Like some other things Craig has tried to do, it's taking a little longer than planned.

http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php?/topic/458-investors/

 

[samedizombie]

Just sounds like good business sense to me, I'd certainly be interested even though I've got my pandora.

 

[Trip]

To ED:
Why didn't you make it an official announcement and offer the upgrade to pre-orderers first?

why didn't you ask people from the community to come and help build the units again?

Why didn't you use the dev fund if you needed money and pay back into it later on?

It doesn't just bother me that you took the boards so much, it's the way in which it was done. You could have done the same thing but with no ill will. If people have stood by you for that long, do you really think that they would let the project fail because they want their Pandora first? I'm pretty damn sure that they would have let you go ahead with it if you would have tried involving them in the decision more than what you did.