I hope Meh never upgrades the servers...
25...or even downgrades them for Fukus!
People don't seem to understand that even if the servers were perfect, only the first 1000 people closest to Meh's ISP and the fastest PCs would generally have a shot. And it will always be that way! With the random delay induced by the current outages, others actually have a better shot at getting a Fuku.
Also, these are the only times when Meh would have to have an infrastructure capable of sustaining the severe DDOS load for only a few seconds. The rest of the time it would be idle, so the money spent to upgrade would be wasted and force them to increase prices to recoup the costs.
And as for people wanting 10,000+ Fukus available, think about what the past Fukus contained and what their actual value was. Divide that by 10 and then multiply the shipping costs by 10, and we'd be lucky to end up with a binder clip in each Fuku.
So play the game or go to sleep, but no change Meh can make will increase your chances or better the value of what the winners get, no matter how many threaten to cancel their VMP memberships or vows never to buy again.
KuoH
- 26 comments, 57 replies
- Comment
A better idea is to sell something that only about 1000 people would want to buy and send out Fukus. Then after word gets out, people would be more likely to buy crappy stuff in the future thinking it might really be a Fuku.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/secret-fuku-sale
@neuromancer Then people will complain about bait and switch. The game is fine the way it is and people will always complain no matter how the rules are changed. The only way to make everyone happy is if Oprah buys Meh and gives everyone free Fukus. Even then, unixreb will probably still be unhappy and threaten to send it back!
@kuoh what bait and switch? Instead of getting just a crappy speaker, they get a crappy speaker and a lucky bag?
@neuromancer They will say they were expecting a bag because of how crappy the speaker is. They might as well rename it to Kobayashi Maru.
I'm sure Google has better servers than Meh. They can handle traffic unlike Meh. I disagree, better servers would cause fewer problems. Fewer people pissed off.
@aradem Woot-azon has nearly unlimited servers, but still has problems and pisses off a lot of people. This is, as noted above, in effect a DDOS attack.
I agree slowing down the process probably lets people with longer/slower connections have a slightly better chance.
That's a fairly extreme straw man. The only way?
They only sold 1,000 of those things, and it took 2 hours to process.
That's ridiculous. Unless by "servers" you mean an i3 Mac Mini.
@saodell Well, not quite. They sold a couple hundred in anywhere from a few minutes to an hour (I woke up at 1AM EST). About an hour later, they sold 800 of them, all in the space of a minute or two.
@saodell Pretty sure past mention was of MS windows systems, not Macs. Which explains a lot...
@kuoh +1 For Kobayashi Maru
I can see why that might seem like a way to make the system more fair, but the heat map of where people actually purchased would say otherwise. This could be because while it's one thing to stay up until 11 to purchase the product, it's something else entirely to stay up until 2, which dramatically reduces the population able to compete for a chance to get the prize.
@Jaker It's all determination. If you really wanted the fuku that bad then time wouldn't be a big issue. Even if I was on central time I would still stay up till 2-3am to buy it. And that is with me having work at 6am.
@Skylord123 Wrong. Plenty of people log in at midnight but still cant get fukus.
@Jaker In addition there is that bottleneck into the servers. I was logged in at 12:20 EST and once I clicked on wanting one I waited 20 minutes for the next window, before giving up and going to bed.
@trod1952 I was tied up on a work call until 11:20PM Central time, but had logged on to Meh earlier. I managed to get a fuku around 1AM Central. Dog tired now but got fuku coming!
@neuromancer I logged in at 12:07 Eastern time & finally quit trying to purchase one at 12:40. Could not get through to save my life.
BLAH
who cares
Work gonna be dragging today because my dumb east coast ass stayed up all night to try and get fuku-ed.
@jzmacdaddy Same here. ZONKED.
Yeah, that's some pretty distorted "reasoning" there. They could maintain the randomness and still significantly improve the experience. Indeed, the servers have experienced issues far short of fuku traffic. Moreover, despite folks liking things, to some degree, "just the way they are," I can only assume that meh wants growth and fuku level traffic more often.
Something did indeed go terribly fucking wrong and it needs to be fixed.
@joelmw cheer up sucker
@shawn great comment from an employee. This clearly shows what meh stands for in supporting those of us who pay your salary.
@derek17j "cheer up sucker"
@derek17j you must be new here.
@derek17j It's in their theme song. It's practically their motto.
@derek17j I appreciate the thought, but, despite my frustration in the midst of and immediately after my two hour date with futility, @shawn's snarkiness, representative of the whole crew, is part of what I love about this place. And, yeah, it's literally their theme song. It was in fact the appropriately inappropriate hilarious thing to say. And I laughed. What the fuck am I gonna do?
Yes, there's definitely something wrong with me.
And this is all my fault anyway.
That being said, @shawn dude, you guys gotta fix something. Shit's fucked up. But I trust that you're working on it. Like I said, there's something wrong with me.
@derek17j oh man, did you really pull the "pay your salary" card? Eww.
Seriously?
You think MedLabs is happy going forward with exactly 170,000 members? No plans for growth?
If there's beauty in randomness, then change the start time from midnight eastern. Make the start time random, so the first however many people can order, pay, close out, and go on.
But accepting fucked up servers? That's a good business model?
@saodell Servers is expensive. Computers is expensive. Moneys is also expensive.
@saodell Well, problem with that is that I can just make a python script that queries the API. If there is a new deal and it's a fuku then auto buy it. You see what I did there? Made it so all those hours of refreshing the page useless and cheated the people actually putting in the effort. Keep it the way it is. They are doing it right.
@Skylord123 Except for a FUKU there is a Captcha that prevents robots and scripts from auto buying.
@cengland0 it preventsalso people from buying things!
You're right. It would be SO much worse to instantly know if they've sold out. Futilely mashing my refresh button for two hours is SO much better.
And saodell has a good idea.
@clyde2801 They hadn't sold out until the end. My order went in successfully at 1:52AM. The Fukubukuro4 sold out at 1:53AM.
I know it felt like it went from dead to sold out, but that's because the site started working and a bunch of people bought it nearly immediately.
@curtise Indeed. I extracted the URL of the checkout frame, and had it trying to load in 3-4 tabs, restarting them when they timed out, and in the meantime refreshing the home page, scrolled down to the buy counter to watch when it started moving. When the tabs loaded, I was glad to discover that all the information (both address and card) was prepopulated from a previous order, and reCAPTCHA was satisfied with the automated (browser PoW?) checkmark and didn't ask for any typing, allowing me to complete the purchase with two clicks (well, 4, since I snagged a second one while I didn't know if the first would go through)
I still think that Meh should hand out these Fuku bags 20 at a time at random intervals throughout the day. Not only does this lower Meh's peak server load, but it gives everyone a shot at getting a bag.
I'd recommend the same solution for Woot, but they probably have a sweetheart deal with Amazon Web Services now where they can spin up 100 extra servers for practically no additional cost during peak demand.
@danoinct Woot now often does exactly this. It's annoying because your chances of being able to buy one of twenty are way worse than being able to buy one of a thousand. So you end up wasting WAY more time than just two hours.
AAhhh, so I was not the only one who could not log on last night? (tried Amazon& Google too) It was 9:05 PT. Wow, guess I should not have destroyed my cell phone thinking it was a pos- and not letting me on either! lol ;) Well fukuing good mehning to me!
@Shata If you check Meh every day, sign on (or sign off then back on) an hour or so prior to the reset time. You'll still be logged on for that device when its time.
@Shata the servers broke around 9:02PST. back online around 10:43PST Sold out around 10:55PST
If they just place servers around the US and put up a load balancer then the first 1000 people from anywhere in the US would get the fuku.
Also generally webservers process requests as they come in. They queue them up. So if someone connects from further away then you connect the person further away will get served the content first. The only thing is if their internet is slow then you have a chance of getting it first.
If they used cloudflare for ddos protection, load balanced the web servers and database they would be able to make it more fair game.
@Skylord123 they could also have Akamai host all their servers like the big boys do, but at some point the cost has to equal the return. $5 dollar Fukus only buy so much technology.
@neuromancer Yeah. That is why I suggest using a load balancer that can spin up VPS webservers as needed. Rackspace does this relatively cheap for a company of this size. We use it here at work and it handles everything like a charm. And no, my company isn't that big.
@Skylord123 a load balancer, shit why didn't I think of that
@shawn I know, you guys probably already have it in place. Only so much you can do when thousands of people are spamming your url at once.
@Skylord123 Spamming? You mean logging onto the site as directed?
@shawn
I spent an hour last night trying to buy one. Nothing. I hit order at 11:01 but it just spun until it timed out. :(
Everyone who has so much to say, start your own similar company and make your own decisions to see where that gets you. For now, Meh is Meh, they decide their business model and we as consumers go along with it or not. Whatever they decide, there are going to be the ranks of us jumping through whichever hoops are created in an attempt to pay $5 for a box of total crap...or broken good stuff...whatever.
Is it possible to create some sort of ticketing system maybe. I tried for an hour last night on three different devices and had to call it quits because I worked in the morning. Yay for whoever got one, and I get it your lucky if you got it. Just I really did try and I have wanted one of these since I joined meh. I couldnt even get to the forums. Ill keep checking everyday like a good meher, just wish there was a better way to tackle this issue.
If you all would just buy more stuff, meh could afford to upgrade their servers. Open up those wallets, people!
@DaveInSoCal +1
@DaveInSoCal We tried, but the fuckin' servers were down!!!
The real trick would be to get @JonT to blackout again and start Oprah-ing Fukus like they were +10 cases.
"YOU GET A FUKU! AND YOU GET A FUKU!
YOU SAID THE SECRET WORD? YOU GET A FUKU!
STOP SAYING BATH! BUT WAIT, YOU GET A FUKU!" etc.
@curtise bath
Its amazing how much this thread resembles all the unhappy BOC complaint threads over at Woot through the years. I admit I partook early on over there, but its seriously not worth it. It took me nearly 2 hours to get a fuku. My efforts increased my odds over folks who just watched their attempts time out, but I was still lucky to squeak an order in; could just as easily have missed out as I did so often at Woot.
Besides, how likely is it that all the efforts of all the fuku buyers are going to be rewarded with more than that gut-settling feeling of 'meh...' when the boxes are opened and the extremely likely mediocrity within is revealed? "I spent $5 and 90 minutes? For this? Meh...."
You could do something like having a fukubukuro button at midnight est. from 0000 to 0100 everyone who clicks the button goes into a pot. then also have a fukubukuro button from 1200 to 1300 for those who cannot be up at midnight. the button can only be clicked once per user. then randomly select the 1143 fukubukuros from that pot. payment processing would occur after that. I would think that would reduce the load on the servers if everyone had positive feedback that their name was in the pot, and did not have to keep refreshing, and saving the payment processing until later. having said that, I would rather they keep it the way they have it now.
swordfish
Unpopular opinion: OP is right. It doesn't make economic sense for Meh to spend the money on servers needed for 1 sale. The fact that the site crashes and goes down spreads out the sale quite nicely. If I recall, last night they sold about 800 in two minutes at one point. With the site crashing and something going terribly wrong, it does somewhat even out the playing field - you have a random odd of getting one.
Also: A lot of people here are perpetually unhappy. Deal with it. Unless you want to pay for the server upgrades.
No matter how they were to change their would always be tens of thousands of people who wanted fuku's who could never get them because there will not be enough to go around. Therefore, there would always be people complaining about whatever way they did it.
I don't think they should have to change anything unless they want too. It's their company. I'm just glad to have been here during the early days and for the opportunity to experience full fuku joy, excitement, anticipation and disappointment more than once.
@viciousterra There's a difference between trying and failing and repeatedly trying in futility for two hours. There's no good reason that folks should have to wait two hours in the middle of the night to discover that the item is sold out. Let me repeat, it serves no purpose. It doesn't more fairly distribute the products, it doesn't "level the playing field," it doesn't "reward effort." The damned thing broke and meh acknowledged it. What is it about you people who think that broke or insufficient systems shouldn't be fixed.
By any reasonable reckoning the fukus could have--with no disadvantage to anyone--been sold out in a half hour, arguably less.
Hell, I'm happy for the folks who got a fuku, especially those who never had before. I'm less happy for the smug pricks who got two and think they're awesome for doing so. But even that isn't such a big deal.
And, for the record, I'm not saying anything is unfair, just that the process was needlessly frustrating and is fixable. And I have every reason to believe they will (and for Christ's sake should) fix it.
@viciousterra TL; DR? If it's broke, you fucking fix it. Unless of course you're a goddamned moron or sadist. It's broke. They should fucking fix it.
@joelmw grumpy goat.
@Ignorant Yes I am. The image shows what my wife often calls me. She's cute, so she can get away with it.
For the record, I was frustrated this morning between 11:30PM and 1:30AM CST, but I'm not mad at meh, I'm mad at the dipshits who don't think meh should fix what I think it's pretty clear meh thinks meh should fix. What the fuck?
@joelmw The fix is for you to just go to bed as soon as you see the red bag. Your chances will be the same, you will be less cranky in the morning and your wife will love you more for it.
@joelmw I believe that they have every intention of fixing it. I'm sure they were more upset than anyone when all their hard work trying to prepare and troubleshoot for last night resulted in....well...last night. They were up all night with that mess too.
I was responding more to the calls from everyone that they should change the way they do fuku's entirely because the last 2 times out of 3 they have tried their have been problems. I'm sure @snapster know how he wants to run a business like this by now. And I'm sure it will get fix asap.
@joelmw Beautifully said Cranky Pants. Everyone keeps trying to deflect from the core issue by chanting the "Everyone can't have a Fuku" mantra. The Fuku part doesn't matter. The sellout part doesn't matter. Nature of the beast and all. But they should have all been sold out less than 10 minutes after they went live not after almost 2 hours of server problems. I'm going to assume they're fixing it until I see otherwise.
@cblack did you see otherwise yet
@viciousterra Alright, well I'm with you on that. And I was being grumpy. Sorry about that.
@cblack
this is the end meh.
@natekimh Will Meh be the end of you?
@natekimh
@natekimh
So many answers to solving the $5 bag of BS epidemic plaguing us all in 2015. Instead of whining loudly and clogging the intertubes, use your adult voice: money. You don't like the game, don't play it.
Fun fact: You only want this so bad BECAUSE it is hard to get. If commenting on this thread cost $20 and only the first 20 comments were visible, @kuoh would be sitting on $400 in 5 minutes.
@masterofpoop You can send it to my Paypal account, but I'll accept a check too.
@kuoh I'd rather send you a random bag of BS from around my house, of unknown value. Also, might I add, it's the only one of its kind. You alone can redeem it, for the low price of $400.
I actually forgot to check meh until 12:41 AM (EST). I did successfully get a fuku bag, but it's only because the site took a shit for more than an hour.
New plan. Every morning that meh is sold out, I throw $10 in a jar. Plus every month I add $5. In 3 months I have enough for the front bumper I have been wanting for my jeep. Thanks meh!!!
Something is terribly wrong is a song that all my co-workers know today. I learned all the words last night. There was talk of a straightjacket and a rubber room.
Have you ever heard of Cloud Hosting? as a backup.
@hourmart READ https://meh.com/forum/topics/ohshit-report-fukubukuro-4