That is exactly what my LBS in CA said. Di2 is reliable and they are recommending steering clear of sram for now. They are not happy about having to deal with the etap problems. That info was too late for me as I was an early adopter. And, ironically, my very first etap groupset is flawless so far.

I was just hoping by this point sram would come clean on this and make the issue public. I guess it's all about $$$ and they aren't ready to take the loss. They are certainly controlling the local shops - it was just weird how "mum" my shop here in NH was. They were not going to talk.

My LBS said that it's not unusual for companies to blame the customer at first before taking the fall. (this actually happened to me once before, many years ago, with velomax wheels when my spokes kept breaking; velomax accused me of "riding off curbs". I wasn't but should have been able to if I wanted to! It turned out that their spoke threader was set to cut too deep and many failures later they figured this out and took full responsibility.)

Heading back to CA where I will install the replacement. Bike shops everywhere. Uber everywhere so getting stranded is not so scary. Not worth the risk here in northern NH where I'm often on the trails in the middle of nowhere with no cell coverage. Lesson learned for this environment. Stick with cables.