Re: [1500 TH] p2pool: Decentralized, DoS-resistant, Hop-Proof pool
When it starts taking you longer to find a share than it does for the pool to find a block you perceive your mining to be "wasted" because blocks will be found for which you receive no payment.
I've not been active in the bitcoin community for a long time now, just randomly popped in the thread to see what's up, and I see this is still a topic of conversation. It's important to note (as you did) it is simply perception/variance, and people don't actually lose any income. If you can only find 1 share every 2 blocks, that share will pay enough that the income per block is still the correct average. This was a common point of confusion and misinformation a year ago. I suspect it will persist forever.
. You're right, not a whole lot has changed. There's still excitement when we find blocks, disappointment when we don't and the rest of the time is spent discussing the same topics: variance and its effect on miners, how to address the problem of variance with "small" miners, if anyone has a solution to the scaling problem... Pool hash rate has gone up to 4PH/s and down as low as 800TH/s. Share difficulty has run the gamut as well. Windpath has done some really nice work and his site has become the de-facto goto for p2pool-related stats.