Some of you can laugh off the Bumpgate garbage in the name of "no one died" but as someone who doesn't get free crap from NV, AMD, Intel, etc and actually pay for my gear from my own pocket having my only computer die just out of warranty due to a company sell BAD PARTS, bad parts the companies knew were bad at the time of sale, and then as a consumer having to try to figure out how to replace said product while companies pass blame, deny responsibility, knowledge, etc is just ridiculous. Maybe $900 isn't much to most of you, which is fine.
But as a consumer actually affected that was a lot of money for us and feel no regret for NV (or Dell) in this issue. Their reputation should be sullied.
And I don't care if, "Well, this is how every business does this."
First, BS. Not every company is like that.
And the ones who are deserve to be pointed out as crap companies unworthy of consumer dollars.
It always says more to me about those people who defend such unethical companies than it does the faceless corporations they "defend."
NV screwed their partners and customers.
NV's partners pretty much cleared inventory with big IOU promises from NV to cover the issues until products passed out of warranty (and said partners took efforts to push as many products out of warranty by fan changes, etc as possible).
The bottom line is NV could have went out of their way to recall defective product, reimbursed consumers, and promoted their brand as being reliable and consumer friendly.
Instead it was business as usual: they knew going this route it would avoid as much major attention as possible, would be the least expensive route, and they would have a hugely active community of 'identities' across the internet (forums, blogs, news sites, Facebook, etc) doing active damage control and spinning. All to get away from the simple point:
NV and their partners screwed up and decided the best move was to let ignorant consumers take it on the chin.
Way to go green team! Way to treat a consumer who has bought a couple thousands dollars of your product dating back to the Riva128 as disposable (which I am sure I am). Having owned that, a TNT2, Ti4200, 6800GT, and a 8600GTS and recommend quite a few NV products your lack of corporate integrity weighs significantly into my feedback of your company.
Consumer goodwill doesn't come cheaply. I have no clue how NV stock is doing right now and as a market I think it needs NV to be healthy and competitive, but I think I express the feeling of a lot of consumers who feel NV really lost a lot of luster through this. I can live with a 10% performance deficit or a game without a feature the competition has. But outright dumping on consumers isn't cool.
I guess they have to win 10 more nvidiots over to balance out effect of one disgruntled consumer. While I wasn't happy about a dead product my feelings as a consumer would be 180 today if NV had taken responsibility for their decisions. Like much of life it isn't so much what you did but your intent. NV's intent in this situation was completely CYA with utter disregard for consumers. In return I think consumers should do the same to them.
