Not fun

[Gtscotty]

With so many different steels offered in the past for the Mule Team project you end up with fewer and more esoteric steels to offer. Unless you offer old Mules a new lease on life. Many Mules were offered many years ago and it would be great to offer them to more users. I think all of these would be good candidates for a redux:

• CPM-M4
• CPM-S45VN
• CPM-S30V
• CPM-20CV
• CPM-CRU-WEAR
• VG-10
• N690
• M390
• K390
• H1
• LC200N
• CTS-BD1N
• CTS-XHP

Might be an opportunity to make a slightly different Mule series with a different blade profile, like a drop point hunter, trailing point or clip point, and run some of the biggest steel hits back through. I'd be in for a Mule Hunter series in several if those steels + Magna.

Also maybe use a few preferred online retail partners to launch mules instead of forcing everyone to refresh/reload their way through a frustrating, hour long buy process on the potato-powered Spyderco servers. No updates required to the Spyderco systems and I'd pay a little passthrough to skip the wasted time and frustration to just buy from DLT, Knife Joy, Knife Center, etc.

[ChrisinHove]

But when you do have traffic on your site for things like these mules or the seconds sale, my guess would be that that's probably the subset of your customer base that are truly fanatics.
Seth

I think you are mistaken. It isn't the fanatic Spyderco fans alone that do it, it's the people looking to make a quick buck flipping things for 3 times what they paid. They have no shame, no respect and no concern for others, and they don't care what they are flipping. Anything limited, so they can play on the fear of missing out, is what they want to snap up. As long as there are people who will pay double for something, the problem will persist. This drop was more pieces than any pre-Covid Sprint Run that I know of, yet it went in one mass shot, something that would have been totally unbelievable 5 years ago.

I do agree that a server upgrade is in order, though. I'll grant you that our internet speed isn't the greatest, but 67 time out errors was a bit hard to take.

The answer to flippers is to keep making more, isn’t it?

[yablanowitz]

No, as long as it is "limited" they can prey on the "fear of missing out". This run was 2000 pieces, more than three times as many as usual, and it was a total panic logjam. The only solution to flippers is to remove exclusivity. If it is going to continue to be available at regular price, they'll have a hard time selling theirs at a profit, lose interest and move on to something else that they can flip.

[Gtscotty]

No, as long as it is "limited" they can prey on the "fear of missing out". This run was 2000 pieces, more than three times as many as usual, and it was a total panic logjam. The only solution to flippers is to remove exclusivity. If it is going to continue to be available at regular price, they'll have a hard time selling theirs at a profit, lose interest and move on to something else that they can flip.

It's been discussed here before, but I still think having a standard production mule in a decent steel (maybe even SPY27) would take some of the pressure off. MagnaCut was always going to be the most in demand Mule of those announced so far, but I've seen a bunch of posts from folks who just managed to get their first mules in the Magna launch, and others who missed out. I think having a standard Mule in a decent steel would provide an option for folks just getting into knives or steels, or looking for a kit basis, who want to try something better relatively cheaply, without having to wait, build up and jump on the next limited Mule release.

[Rp5]

No, as long as it is "limited" they can prey on the "fear of missing out". This run was 2000 pieces, more than three times as many as usual, and it was a total panic logjam. The only solution to flippers is to remove exclusivity. If it is going to continue to be available at regular price, they'll have a hard time selling theirs at a profit, lose interest and move on to something else that they can flip.

It's been discussed here before, but I still think having a standard production mule in a decent steel (maybe even SPY27) would take some of the pressure off. MagnaCut was always going to be the most in demand Mule of those announced so far, but I've seen a bunch of posts from folks who just managed to get their first mules in the Magna launch, and others who missed out. I think having a standard Mule in a decent steel would provide an option for folks just getting into knives or steels, or looking for a kit basis, who want to try something better relatively cheaply, without having to wait, build up and jump on the next limited Mule release.

100% agree on all three points. I think a stand-production mule will continue to make sense and the SPY-27 option would continue to be a perfect steel choice. Magnacut could have had 5,000 produced and still sold out in a day. Having a SPY-27 version available would at least give people a chance to try the design.

[Bolster]

My humble opinion, but I think some of us are missing the forest for the trees:

It's pretty danged amazing that, if not all of us, many of us can get 3.5" of MagnaCut blade for $75. That's just an amazingly good deal, and if it weren't for that initial price, many of us would not blink an eye at paying $200 for it, which is what the flippers are asking. The flip prices are not unreasonable, unless you take into account what they paid for it. Then it's irritating, but only *relatively* so. If we're buying on *value* then $200 is reasonable.

Not defending flippers, and I'm not one. I'm just trying to add some perspective about value.

[Bolster]

Will the next Mule have enough, or too many? I'd be happy with a few too many over not enough.
sal

I'd like to point out that if interest in Mules cools again, as it has before, Spyderco gets stuck holding the bag. All of us demanding more, more, more investment (and risk) on the part of Spyderco will just fade into the woodwork...I think those of us who are demanding larger production numbers are obligated to continue buying, so we don't leave Spyderco in the lurch. The last thing we want to do is kill the goose (sorry Sal, unfortunate analogy, I'm not calling you a goose) that's laying the golden eggs. I think Spyderco, as a business, has to factor a potential slump in interest (it's happened before!) and produce numbers that they think are reasonable and sustainable.

That said, I'd be content with a method where the die-hards, steel-nuts, edge-junkies, and mule-sketeers prepay to reserve their delicious slice of Spyderco steel. I know that's more complexity, but complexity has to be balanced with complaints. It would also ease the burden on the servers come drop day.

[RustyIron]

Not defending flippers, and I'm not one. I'm just trying to add some perspective about value.

I'll neither defend nor condemn the flippers nor the complainers. The whole controversy is absurd.

On one side, you have people who are willing to spend an hour trying to order online, when there is no guarantee of success. Then they go through the sale process. All in all, they're spending a lot of time and energy to earn a hundred bucks. It's not for me to say, but maybe they should go out and get real jobs.

On the other side, there are "enthusiasts" whose acquisition of a particular model is so important that they spend an hour trying to order online, then gnash their teeth condemning Spyderco's process, and spew vitriol about the "unethical" flippers. Getting that one knife is the most important thing in the world to them. But they won't spend an extra hundred bucks to get it.

[Ramonade]

With so many different steels offered in the past for the Mule Team project you end up with fewer and more esoteric steels to offer. Unless you offer old Mules a new lease on life. Many Mules were offered many years ago and it would be great to offer them to more users.
[...]

Might be an opportunity to make a slightly different Mule series with a different blade profile, like a drop point hunter, trailing point or clip point, and run some of the biggest steel hits back through. I'd be in for a Mule Hunter series in several if those steels + Magna.

Also maybe use a few preferred online retail partners to launch mules instead of forcing everyone to refresh/reload their way through a frustrating, hour long buy process on the potato-powered Spyderco servers. No updates required to the Spyderco systems and I'd pay a little passthrough to skip the wasted time and frustration to just buy from DLT, Knife Joy, Knife Center, etc.

I don't know... The whole concept of a mule is that the design doesn't change. Otherwise the conclusions by the company (or in this awesome spyderco case : the consumer) might be altered by the change of design.

[Gtscotty]

With so many different steels offered in the past for the Mule Team project you end up with fewer and more esoteric steels to offer. Unless you offer old Mules a new lease on life. Many Mules were offered many years ago and it would be great to offer them to more users.
[...]

Might be an opportunity to make a slightly different Mule series with a different blade profile, like a drop point hunter, trailing point or clip point, and run some of the biggest steel hits back through. I'd be in for a Mule Hunter series in several if those steels + Magna.

Also maybe use a few preferred online retail partners to launch mules instead of forcing everyone to refresh/reload their way through a frustrating, hour long buy process on the potato-powered Spyderco servers. No updates required to the Spyderco systems and I'd pay a little passthrough to skip the wasted time and frustration to just buy from DLT, Knife Joy, Knife Center, etc.

I don't know... The whole concept of a mule is that the design doesn't change. Otherwise the conclusions by the company (or in this awesome spyderco case : the consumer) might be altered by the change of design.

Sure the steel observations, preferences and feedback generated from a sightly different blade type or use case will likely differ from that generated from the basic generic mule design, but I fail to see how that is any less valuable. What we're talking about is not some highly controlled experiment with a sacred design, it's a consumer product that offers folks the opportunity to try a variety of steels in a generic, simple design and in some cases publish their thoughts.

Now that a lot of good steels have already been produced in limited runs in that design, I see no issue with bringing some of them back through in a slightly different generic design as a different Mule model. There's more to trying steels than sitting at a table counting rope cuts, and it wouldn't break my heart to see a mule more tailored to some practical use cases like hunting, fishing or bushcraft, especially if the alternative is not getting another crack at the earlier steel runs.

[Rp5]

It would frustrate me to no end to see Mule Teams released through DLT, Knife Joy, Knife Center, etc. all at different UNANNOUNCED times, with no limit on purchase, at double the price. If there's anything worse than missing one drop, it's missing 5 much smaller drops over the course of 3 days from various online distributors that only care about making their buck.

[Gtscotty]

It would frustrate me to no end to see Mule Teams released through DLT, Knife Joy, Knife Center, etc. all at different UNANNOUNCED times, with no limit on purchase, at double the price. If there's anything worse than missing one drop, it's missing 5 much smaller drops over the course of 3 days from various online distributors that only care about making their buck.

This seems like a rather contrived set of overly negative assumptions to me. Do you doubt that Spyderco could organize a coordinated launch of a Mule with a few retail partners at a certain MAP, on a certain launch day/time? Or do you doubt that they could find a few retailers to play along? I don't doubt either.

The price and launch date of every recent Sprint run I can think of has been published on social media somewhere and usually on the Spyderco app well ahead of time, but for some reason the mule would be random and unannounced? Lol.

[Rp5]

If by "rather contrived set of overly negative assumptions," you mean the exact scenario that played out with the Crucarta Shaman and other multi-distributor sprint runs, then sure.

[funguy]

I didn't look at this for a couple of days. Honestly, I'm shocked there were so many replies. I see people posting about flippers and I'm sure that was a big part of the problem with the website performance. I'm not one of those guys, I just wanted to add the Magnacut mule to my small collection of mules. I was excited to give this steel a try since it should withstand more abuse than the typical stainless steel.

It took over 50 minutes to get through the checkout process. Friday was a workday, my boss was not amused. I managed to get order confirmation, but now the pending charge from Spyderco has disappeared from my bank account. So I don't even know if I will get the one that I ordered. That was a lot of hassle to get nothing out of it.

It's clear that the Spyderco web server is not up to the challenge of a Mule release.

[chkn]

Getting that one knife is the most important thing in the world to them. But they won't spend an extra hundred bucks to get it.

Paying that extra hundred bucks validates the flippers though, which causes them to try and buy as many Mules as they can, which causes all this drama to begin with.

[RustyIron]

which causes them to try and buy as many Mules as they can, which causes all this drama to begin with.

Someone from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

“Friend,”He said to him, “who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?”

He then told them, “Watch out and be on guard against all greed because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.”

[chkn]

greed

Sounds like you're preaching to the choir or being needlessly passive aggressive. Speak plainly or be forever misunderstood.