It's been a looong time since the Doug thread on 2+2 was so filled with so much complaining and misinformation.  There seems to be several genuine points of contention that started sprouting irrelevant tangents all over the place.  To be honest, I wasn't completely thrilled with the changes myself, but I can understand them for what they are - business decisions.  Let me explain:

There seems to be this idea that businesses are going to randomly give away money to its customers.  I suppose I too was in this camp.  When they said "we're working on a new rewards program", I (and apparently everyone else) assumed it would be FT giving away "additional" rewards - in particular, to close the gap for high volume players with Stars.  But in hindsight, when you are one of two firms in a price-fixed duopoly, it doesn't really make sense to give away money.  Even giving away 3 percentage points more rakeback probably is like a 10% hit to their net profits.  It makes no sense to do this - at least not now.  Things may be different in a year or two when Harrah's and MGM Grand get on board.  But not now.

FT has always had a bottom-heavy rewards structure.  That is, there were people playing micro-stakes raking $500 a month who were getting 70+% rakeback by maxing out on Ironman.  By comparison, I rake 25+ TIMES that and barely get 40%.  Stars, on the other hand, has a top-heavy structure, where the micro guys get like 20% and the big guys get 60%.  All things being equal, Stars has a better structure for me.  But I think FT has a better development model.  To use a baseball analogy, FT has a good farm system.  They get new micro stakes players with their better rewards program and develop future customers from within.  But I think there needs to be better balance than 70 - 40.  The recent changes are basically a small redistribution the other way. 

One thing I've noticed about FT is that they seem to have a better view than Stars of the overall long-term health of the game.  That's why they got rid of the short-stack infested tables.  And now they are trying to improve "action" on their tables by getting rid of mass multitabling nits.  Even tho I am on the nit side of the player spectrum, I can understand why they made the move to reward players who put more money in the pot.  To be honest, it's only fair - the more money you put in, the more money you should get back.  I suppose FT also saved itself a few dollars since more of the higher VPIP fish may not get rakeback.  But they used the money to fund the Black Card program for higher volume players.  Is that so wrong?  I mean they could have just pocketed the money.  Instead, they are giving it back to the players and presumably hiring some better customer service personnel.  It's not clear to me if net they end up making or losing money on this, but considering there aren't that many fish at the stakes I play, I would say overall FT probably breaks even on the changes.

The people who are most hurt by these changes are:
1) Low volume nits who get hammered by the new rake calculation and can't get the Black Card
2) Low volume guys who can't get the Black Card
3) All other nits who get hammered by the new rake calculation

At the end of the day, as much as people *say* they are leaving, I don't think any of those people are going anywhere.  Because unless you play less than 4 tables at a time, you only have two choices - FT or Stars.  Are you really going to Stars, where the small guys get even less rakeback?!?  Even if you make slightly more rakeback on Stars, when you are a nit, playing with even bigger nits who are 24-tabling is not a recipe for success.  So I think in the short run, this calculated move by FT will piss a lot of people off.  Hopefully in the long run, the quality of the games themselves will get better and all will be forgiven.

I may sound calm now, but wait until I find out my rakeback is going to get hit for more than 4-5 percentage points I was assuming.  Then I will have to join the crazies in the forum!!!