Nobody was ever guaranteed anything and yet people are demanding free stuff. What is wrong with this world? SFE tries to do something nice and this happens.
Once again you and so many others have utterly missed the point. Not one single person who is upset about free day is upset that they didnt get $100. Not ONE single person. Why do you and other people keep perpetuating this myth?
People are upset because SFE wasted their TIME. How? Let me come to the website try to place my order and tell me I didnt get the $100. No problem. If I came, placed my order and lost, I would be perfectly happy and SFE would not have had one single unhappy visitor to their website.
Instead, people spent hours trying to get their order in. People are reacting to the fact they they feel foolish. Everyone spent more than $100 in their time to try to get $100. We all feel like suckers. Let me come and learn that I didnt get $100 in a few minutes and we can all go home.
That is not the same thing at all as not winning the lottery. Yes, we all knew this was a lottery. No one gets upset when they dont win the lottery. But when the lottery machine is down, yes they get upset.
So enough garbage about people being cry babies because they didnt win $100. It is simply mythical.
comprende?
w2hx:
Once again you and so many others have utterly missed the point. Not one single person who is upset about free day is upset that they didnt get $100. Not ONE single person. Why do you and other people keep perpetuating this myth?People are upset because SFE wasted their TIME. How? Let me come to the website try to place my order and tell me I didnt get the $100. No problem. If I came, placed my order and lost, I would be perfectly happy and SFE would not have had one single unhappy visitor to their website.
Instead, people spent hours trying to get their order in. People are reacting to the fact they they feel foolish. Everyone spent more than $100 in their time to try to get $100. We all feel like suckers. Let me come and learn that I didnt get $100 in a few minutes and we can all go home.
That is not the same thing at all as not winning the lottery. Yes, we all knew this was a lottery. No one gets upset when they dont win the lottery. But when the lottery machine is down, yes they get upset.
So enough garbage about people being cry babies because they didnt win $100. It is simply mythical.
comprende?
Exactly, thank you.
w2hx:
Once again you and so many others have utterly missed the point. Not one single person who is upset about free day is upset that they didnt get $100. Not ONE single person. Why do you and other people keep perpetuating this myth?People are upset because SFE wasted their TIME. How? Let me come to the website try to place my order and tell me I didnt get the $100. No problem. If I came, placed my order and lost, I would be perfectly happy and SFE would not have had one single unhappy visitor to their website.
Instead, people spent hours trying to get their order in. People are reacting to the fact they they feel foolish. Everyone spent more than $100 in their time to try to get $100. We all feel like suckers. Let me come and learn that I didnt get $100 in a few minutes and we can all go home.
That is not the same thing at all as not winning the lottery. Yes, we all knew this was a lottery. No one gets upset when they dont win the lottery. But when the lottery machine is down, yes they get upset.
So enough garbage about people being cry babies because they didnt win $100. It is simply mythical.
comprende?
Ditto, its not about the money at all. I can buy anything in the store if I want it, however I normally find it cheaper elsewhere.
w2hx:
People are upset because SFE wasted their TIME. How? Let me come to the website try to place my order and tell me I didnt get the $100. No problem. If I came, placed my order and lost, I would be perfectly happy and SFE would not have had one single unhappy visitor to their website.Instead, people spent hours trying to get their order in. People are reacting to the fact they they feel foolish. Everyone spent more than $100 in their time to try to get $100. We all feel like suckers. Let me come and learn that I didnt get $100 in a few minutes and we can all go home.
That is not the same thing at all as not winning the lottery. Yes, we all knew this was a lottery. No one gets upset when they dont win the lottery. But when the lottery machine is down, yes they get upset.
But that was the exact, explicitly stated nature of the game from the day this thing was announced. “Let’s hammer this server and see who gets through and wins free stuff.” If you didn’t know what you were getting into, then you’re not paying attention. If you knew what you were getting into but didn’t like it, that’s your problem… If you feel like your time was wasted, then why did you waste your time?
That still sounds like a whine. No one forced you to do it.
I came here this morning, tried for about 30 seconds then concluded the site was jammed and left. Wasting 30 seconds of my day is not a big deal.
If your time is so valuable then why did you waste it trying to get in repeatedly?
w2hx:
Once again you and so many others have utterly missed the point. Not one single person who is upset about free day is upset that they didnt get $100. Not ONE single person. Why do you and other people keep perpetuating this myth?People are upset because SFE wasted their TIME. How? Let me come to the website try to place my order and tell me I didnt get the $100. No problem. If I came, placed my order and lost, I would be perfectly happy and SFE would not have had one single unhappy visitor to their website.
Instead, people spent hours trying to get their order in. People are reacting to the fact they they feel foolish. Everyone spent more than $100 in their time to try to get $100. We all feel like suckers. Let me come and learn that I didnt get $100 in a few minutes and we can all go home.
That is not the same thing at all as not winning the lottery. Yes, we all knew this was a lottery. No one gets upset when they dont win the lottery. But when the lottery machine is down, yes they get upset.
So enough garbage about people being cry babies because they didnt win $100. It is simply mythical.
comprende?
tetsujin:
w2hx:
People are upset because SFE wasted their TIME. How? Let me come to the website try to place my order and tell me I didnt get the $100. No problem. If I came, placed my order and lost, I would be perfectly happy and SFE would not have had one single unhappy visitor to their website.Instead, people spent hours trying to get their order in. People are reacting to the fact they they feel foolish. Everyone spent more than $100 in their time to try to get $100. We all feel like suckers. Let me come and learn that I didnt get $100 in a few minutes and we can all go home.
That is not the same thing at all as not winning the lottery. Yes, we all knew this was a lottery. No one gets upset when they dont win the lottery. But when the lottery machine is down, yes they get upset.
But that was the exact, explicitly stated nature of the game from the day this thing was announced. “Let’s hammer this server and see who gets through and wins free stuff.” If you didn’t know what you were getting into, then you’re not paying attention. If you knew what you were getting into but didn’t like it, that’s your problem… If you feel like your time was wasted, then why did you waste your time?
Do you work for SparkFun or do you just type to hear the keyboard click?
First off they stated in the first post about the event “Ohh we got new servers we want to show off what we can do now.” and they failed. Hardware or software they failed!! Oh and that was a really fancy banner… Since they posted this “we beefed up our servers and completely re-written and streamlined our site” it has been slower than I have seen in years!! I don’t blame SparkFun the “idea” I blame the poor implementation!! As a consultant if I gave this website implementation to a client I would be out of a job.
We as internet users expected to see response times like other reputable “read reputable” vendors on the web. We expected to be able to post to the server and either win or lose.
I see the event as a “Brick and Mortar” having a huge Black Friday sale with only 1 cash register. No matter what you type or how many names you call us babies or whatever we still have a legitimate complaint.
With that said I think it was a great idea too bad they couldn’t pull it off.
It’s not a myth. There’s only one reason why you chose to waste your own time, and that is because you thought you could get free stuff. Would you have wasted two hours trying to order something if it wasn’t free?
w2hx:
Once again you and so many others have utterly missed the point. Not one single person who is upset about free day is upset that they didnt get $100. Not ONE single person. Why do you and other people keep perpetuating this myth?
I liked this free day. I didn’t take advantage of it, but an interesting thing happened. All the local forums completely unrelated to electronics mentioned sparkfun. I instantly knew who my fellow local nerds were. Great to know electronics is a popular hobby after all these years.
Sparkfun makes the world a smaller, much more fun place!
Some people really haven’t grown beyond that extremely childish attitude that they’re entitled to everything.
“WAAAHH I spent my time trying to get something frrreeee and diiiiidn’ttttt waaaahhh. They should have fixed their servers… waaaahhhh.”
If you followed any of the posts SparkFun put out referring to the free day, you would have picked up on the notion that they knew things were probably going to grind pretty hardcore. You can’t blame them because you’re either illiterate or too lazy to read; you should have figured out this was expected.
Publicity stunt?? Absolutely. But next time do your homework on what is being offered and quit complaining that mom and dad bought you the silver BMW instead of the red one you wanted for your super sweet sixteen.
C’mon now princess, get over yourself.
Now look it as it was; a mad money grab. You knew it was coming. It’s no different than Wallmart on black friday; fighting off 3 ton women for a $50 bicycle that they or their children will never use.
You are all, of course, right. I’ll take my ball now and go home. 
knew things would get hardcore?
I visited the site for the first time yesterday. And the home page said this:
We’ve beefed up our servers and completely re-written and streamlined our site. But realize that there are a lot of people with full carts waiting to hit the ‘submit’ button at 9AM. Servers may become slow, there may be timeouts so please be patient. SparkFun IT has even created a fancy banner they will be cycling in at the top showing a countdown and running sum. T-3 days…
read: may become slow. read: maybe timeouts
Yeah, you’re right that is hardcore. Sorry I misread it.
I read that earlier as well and changed my timeouts in firefox to 1,000,000 from 300. I had many timeouts but several page loads and it finally went through.
Their servers were still going (after the first crashes). Just slow.
brusmith:
Do you work for SparkFun or do you just type to hear the keyboard click?
I don’t work for Sparkfun. What’s wrong with me participating in this discussion? And why doesn’t it apply to you?
I see the event as a “Brick and Mortar” having a huge Black Friday sale with only 1 cash register. No matter what you type or how many names you call us babies or whatever we still have a legitimate complaint.
I don’t think I’ve called anyone names… Did I?
What’s your legitimate complaint? Sparkfun let us know exactly what we’d be in for…
masgrada:
I read that earlier as well and changed my timeouts in firefox to 1,000,000 from 300. I had many timeouts but several page loads and it finally went through.Their servers were still going (after the first crashes). Just slow.
Your my hero now move on Princess!
tetsujin:
brusmith:
Do you work for SparkFun or do you just type to hear the keyboard click?I don’t work for Sparkfun. What’s wrong with me participating in this discussion? And why doesn’t it apply to you?
I see the event as a “Brick and Mortar” having a huge Black Friday sale with only 1 cash register. No matter what you type or how many names you call us babies or whatever we still have a legitimate complaint.
I don’t think I’ve called anyone names… Did I?
What’s your legitimate complaint? Sparkfun let us know exactly what we’d be in for…
Here, so you don’t have to scroll up.
“We as internet users expected to see response times like other reputable “read reputable” vendors on the web. We expected to be able to post to the server and either win or lose.” This by no means gives me a warm fuzzy feeling about the company.
If Microsoft did this the world would be in an uproar well not the world only the Microsoft haters. SFE does this and it’s the same you have the SFE evangelist come to try to save the companies face. Today’s event sucked! Nothing more nothing less! I will not do business with a company that the building collapses when they have a sale or freebies.
A companies website is the companies face to the world is that egg? A corporate website is corporate branding! Todays brand says to me unreliable and pretentious!
done
I had a couple hundred $$ worth of stuff waiting in my cart - like many others I am sure - and couldn’t get through at all from before it started until after it ended. I am disappointed, but I’ll still buy stuff from them - I just think that this was a very poorly thought out idea that was destined to fail, and if anyone couldn’t see in advance that it would precipitate resentment as well as joy, well, then they’re seriously delusional.
In any case, I still am going to put in my order for stuff - though now I think that I may wait for them to get back to normal lead-times. So, perhaps they might now see a SLOWER than normal order rate as folks like me wait for the insanity to clear and normal business to resume.
I think that a better model/approach in future would be to have a randomly selected orders, or a randomly selected percentage of discount, applied to people’s orders over the course of a day, or even a week, until some $$ limit is reached. In this way, more people may benefit, the feeding frenzy will be reduced and spread out, and more of the repeat customers (whom they SHOULD be rewarding for their good business year) will be more likely to get some benefit out of it, rather than the madhouse that this was.
I will continue to do business with this company - but I think that there were much better ways to “give back” than this approach. They might even have offered to donate a percentage of sales to various charities instead, and that still would have generated increased business.
w2hx:
We all feel like suckers. Let me come and learn that I didnt get $100 in a few minutes and we can all go home.
Er, you mean you couldn’t tell within a few minutes that you weren’t going to get your $100 worth of stuff? Why the heck not?
Frankly, I thought it was pretty obvious even before 9 AM MST, the way things were responding (or more accurately, not responding). Certainly by 9:08 the handwriting was on the wall.
You people complaining should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves. If you chose to continue trying to get something FREE, which no one really deserves anyway…and you didn’t succeed…Sparkfun didn’t waste your time. YOU did.
First of all, i want to say w2hx nailed it with his first reply to this thread.
For the rest of you who still for some reason cant get it, i will try to explain.
Like w2hx said, if i came there and could not get in, try a few times then go.
Or if it was over. However, if i spend the time getting things into my cart and then when it came time to checkout i had to repeatedly press resend for it to submit my info, this is where the waste of time was. We were all excited to have a bad full of free stuff, but when it came to crossing the finish line someone kept moving it.