I think it may be fairly accurate to state that the reason some of the readers of this forum are upset with Spearo's comments is that many of his comments are worded in a way that makes it sound like he is providing a product review for Consumer Reports rather than beta testing experimental engineering hardware. Since he is new to monofins, he lacks experience which would make him unqualified to have credible judgments for such a review, and so his comments are viewed by many as rude distractions to the forum thread rather than useful public information.
Personally, I feel that it would have been more appropriate if some of Spearo's comments would have been sent to me in a private message rather than through the public forum. I could have worked with him to help him through his monofin learning curve, without dragging the rest of you through those distractions. However, I was reluctant ask him to go private with his comments as I thought that would basically amount to censorship. I have never tried to hype up DOL-Fins better than they are or tried to cover up the shortcomings, so I was reluctant to go there. Instead, I tried to redirect those topics to the "DOL-Fin Information Exchange" thread where they would still be public, but separate from this thread and not distracting to those who are not interested. This has not worked as well as I had hoped.
I am funding the DOL-Fin projects out of pocket and on a limited budget. At present, I am mostly relying on 'word of mouth' marketing to promote the DOL-Fins. This forum is probably one of the better platforms I have available for that, so it would be naive to say that bad-mouthing the product will not have a negative effect on it's chances of commercial success. Negative comments have a much stronger effect on public opinion than do positive comments.
We must all be mindful that this is a public forum and that the tonality of how information is exchanged on this thread can impact readers impressions of both the product and of the person making the comments. Information can be exchanged in a tonality that communicates "I found a problem, I'm upset, and I want retribution", or the same information can be exchanged in a way that says "I found problem, and I want to help you fix it". The later is what is expected from a beta tester, and it is generally kept private between the beta-tester and the product developer. Using the forum for what should be a private message is inappropriate and I think many people are reacting to a tonality in Spearo's comments that is communicating more along the lines of the first example. I think most readers are finding this to be unacceptable from a beta tester.
As for the broken fin tab; that is disappointing, but these things can happen during this part of product development. I had believed all the stress areas were covered and something breaking during normal use was not going to happen. I have substantial use on other units that have held up well for me. At present, I don't know if Spearo's fin broke under normal loads that would be found while freediving underwater or if it broke while doing something else more stressful to the part. In either case, I will look into this issue and address any deficiencies in the design and/or manufacturing process to assure the DOL-Fin products are as safe as they can possibly be. This appears to be a local stress-strain issue, and there is likely a reasonable solution that will get the program back on track without a severe redesign of the product. It is not as though the diving fin just does not work and needs to be completely reworked in order to function acceptably.
Clearly this will result in some delay before going into retail sales. At present, I don't have enough information to speculate if this will be a 6 week or more like a 6 month delay, but I will provide updates as information becomes available.