I agree with what you're saying, but I think it also illustrates my fundamental complaint towards oculus.

Blizzard, and gaming companies like it (Riot Games for League of Legends), have done things at the expense of the consumer time and time again in the favor of profit.

Where companies "grind my gears" is when they misrepresent what they are offering. For instance... Riot Games with league of legends, used to sell exclusive "one time" in-game features. They said they'd only be available for sale for a limited time, as a "thank you" to their early adopting loyal fans. Then later on they changed their tune to, "well we have to be fair to the broader market", and sold those limited/exclusive items to the masses.

If when you pre-ordered the oculus there was a disclaimer that said, "Just so you know, we may be required to make this available via retail before your pre-order is delivered"... I'd have no problem with it.

I work in the for-profit private sector, and I know the value of profit and the realities of contracts (as well as just the general "good faith" of keeping an agreement made in the past with retailers). I can appreciate their commitment to those agreements; however, I also know that there are countless examples of businesses messing up launches oculus should have learned from. Maybe I'm cynical, but I think the decision makers at oculus were capable of anticipating this happening, and they simply chose to engage in those commitments and chose to not be transparent to their pre-order customers.

I mean honestly, they planned to launch on the last day of March. They apparently committed to sell the rift in the beginning of May via retail. That's like a month and week to allow for delays in the launch without upsetting pre-orders. I can either assume they had such poor judgment that they thought a month and a week of delays was impossible, or that they knowingly took the risk for profit.

I just look at it from a business perspective and think that this wasn't worth it to oculus. I'd bet the people over at vive are thrilled with how poorly this launch has gone. There are people who ordered a vive in april and have gotten it already. Maybe this sort of business would go unpunished in a vacuum with no competitors, but I'd like to think this launch cost oculus more than they assumed.

I look at some of the older posts by Palmer and I think, "wow, he's really got the right idea. I think he's going to do right by the consumer"... and I just wish the realities of what wound up happening were more in-line with that. Maybe it was facebook, the desire to make more money or be more successful, or just an unsuccessful launch of a product. Regardless of the reason, I still think people are right to be disappointed.