Quote from: philipma1957 on September 12, 2015, 04:35:47 PM

Quote from: generalt on September 12, 2015, 04:23:06 PM

Quote from: philipma1957 on September 12, 2015, 01:08:30 PM

Quote from: fullzero on September 11, 2015, 09:51:10 PM

I think it depends on the scale. If your largest monthly expense is your electric bill; its not really a hobby any more.

yeah this is pretty much the case.

In the dead of winter I have done 690 usd for a power bill running 22 gpu's and 11 pc's

Kind of not a hobby at that point.

Now have I made a lot of money since 2012 no. Maybe 7k in 3 years and 3 months .

So it is a business but not too big in my case.

If you ask me, any hobby that has a potential for profit is fantastic. People spend tons of money on other hobbies that have no profit potential at all. As long as you're enjoying what you're doing and having fun. Sure mining might not be the most exciting hobby. Really once they are set up and running there's no fun in watching the lights blink and the fans just spin and your bitcoin wallet balance increase at a glacial pace. But some people just like playing with the new hardware and tweaking things to get the most out of it. To others hash power is like horse power. You can never have too much of it. In the end this has taken up a lot of my time and I probably made some money in the long run, but if I didn't do this I'd just end up spending money on another hobby that keeps me busy but with no return. So even if I lost say $1000 on mining, I would call it the cost of my hobby.

pretty much on the same page as you.

I use to build audio speakers ------------- good sound but spent a lot on this.

I used to build pc's ---------------------- was fun did not make much coin mostly lost money
then up grade mac minis ------------- made a few thousand a year at this and always had 2 or 3 top of the line mac minis in the house.
then pc/gpu mining rigs ------------ made some money

now tweak asic rigs ------------------ makes some money

still build pc's for friends

mining has been the most fun the feb mar apr 2013 run up

the sept oct nov 2013 run up

so much fun. more then any of the other hobbies.

I fully agree here and have rambled on about how a hobby can have so many positive attributes, byproducts, or however these things are worded.
You can feel good if you are idealistic and consider with a hobby as mining, if you support the right type of pool, hence the pool's ideals and opinions you are helping the network. This may lead to discussions of morality or even how you as a "little guy" may have a horse in the race with the big guys.
You protect the network, or help to do so.
You allow for future growth by simply turning the miner on.
You also have the potential for teaching others through your existing hardware. Be it PC items such as networking, or electrical such as using 240v versus 120, not to mention how it all converts to DC at the power supply and used at the miner

There are so many more good things from this 'hobby', but as someone else stated, the potential to break even, or, that word profit may apply for some folks.
It sure is fun to simply make some LEDs blink, see numbers climb, and see a balance increase.