21 apparently wants to scale out appliance and device mining to the mass market. That hasn't happened because no one has done it yet. The mass market isn't interested in (perhaps less than optimally efficient) mining rigs as heating units, but they'll be happy with an integrated plug-in unit that costs them less because it mines for the manufacturer.
So you are asserting that selling space heaters to individuals didn't work because no one made an integrated plug-n-play process? And the retailers of appliances can make it so resolving connectivity and operational issues
I'm asserting that no one has tried to sell Bitcoin miners as space heaters because it's been too small and too new of a market and no one has developed the technology for embeddable mining. Selling products at consumer price points is very different from selling mining rigs to be used in big farms and data centers.
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You don't $116 million to launch that over the internet, unless the point is you need to have it in all retailers and with name brand names on the products.
Meh, there is a lot of VC money flying around these days, probable an indirect consequence of QE. So you might be surprised at the crap business plans that get funded. But I would guess yes, their appliances may show up with brand names in retailers at some point. They aren't really even launched yet, the only thing they've done at this point is recently reveled some of their plans/technology.
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Also, there no real tax burden to the manufacturer, mining revenue is taxed essentially the same as product or service revenue, especially if converted to fiat right away.
You are saying the manufacturer will sell the device at a lower price (taking all the mined coins) but the consumer will pay the same electric bill, then bother to keep the miner running well
I guess it won't require effort to keep it running (or the product will likely fail, which is very possible).
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Any shell games on who pays the utility bill don't resolve the tax culpability (at least in the USA).
There's no shell game here. Mining income is taxed the essentially the same as product revenue. If you sell a product for $100 instead of $200 and get $100 worth of mined coins, then you pay tax on $200, just the same as if you had sold the product for $200. If you sell it for $100 instead of $200 and get $200 worth of mined coins, you in fact sold the product for $300 and pay tax on $300 (but have a higher profit margin).
The consumer gets no tax deduction for heating his water/air, in either case.
The barriers to entry aren't incredibly low, for the product itself, but being integrated into products distributed through a supply chain is a reasonably effective form of lock in by bundling. Walmart probably only carries a few lines of space heaters, etc. Altcoins won't have access to the hash rate unless they can convince the manufacturer.