Personally, I won't hold it against a vendor if they're 100% in it for the money. And, I won't hold it against them if they want to keep their secrets. Transparency is nice, but I can respect the idea that, if they dont want to disclose things, they don't have to tell us anything. I mean, I'm not itching to support a money-hungry, secretive firm with my hard-earned dollars, but I'm not going to criticize a chile business over such things.
My beef with these PuckerButt guys is the dishonesty. The smoke and mirrors tactics, the self-contradictory origin stories, their fabled 3million SHU pepper that changes color before it is released to the public...
And I'm also put off by their nonsensical bully tactics, threatening hobby-level growers with litigation and what not. Ted B, aka the Fire Breathing Idiot, says the feds questioned him after he did a pod review on Pepper X. I'm smart enough to take that with a grain of salt but, given Smokin Ed's track record, it seems somewhat plausible. I wouldn't even confided such a tale if it was about literally ANY other big name chile company...
But, they say there's no such thing as bad press. For every guy like me who is never gonna spend money with these clowns, there's probably ten guys who are buying the hype, and three guys who just think I ought to just chill out about it.
I assure you, i'm reasonably chill about these shenanigans. I am thoroughly unimpressed, but I'm far from freaking out. Luckily, there are a lot of vendors with whom I AM impressed, and I am more than happy to spend my chile money with those folks...
ThatBlondGuy101 said:
My main bone to pick with them is that 90% of their reason for being in the chilli game is the money. Sure, they're a business, so making money is their job, but surely there is a more transparent, responsible, straightforward and honest way of doing so? I don't like being strung along, not one bit. If they think they have a new hottest, they should go to the labs, get it tested, get it certified, and then share it with the world (at a profit, obviously). None of this "we're still waiting for confirmation, but you can buy our over-priced, limited stock now" BS.
This "oh yeah, it wasn't ripe before" crap really makes my blood boil.
I'll stop ranting now...