Serious question. Why are people buying these. I just did a quick break even calculation and assuming zero electricity costs, not including the PSU cost, and zero difficulty increases you break even in about 190 days. Obviously those are very favorable assumptions, probably very unrealistic.
Not criticizing the product, just really curious about it, since I've bought Ant Miners before, but I now find myself scratching my head. The numbers these days just don't seem to make sense to me.
I saw the same thing in my calculations as well. However, I'm going to take a bit of a gamble. I have my thoughts about the difficulty between now and the block halving that I do not wish to share here. I also have my thoughts about bitcoin price in the spring and about a month out from the block halving. The power costs per GH/s is not as high as it used to be on previous rigs. I'm actually paying for the power out of pocket and holding on to the bitcoin mined. There's a chance I might sell the rigs one month away from the block halving. I won't know until that time. I will get money back when the rigs are sold on eBay. How much? Who knows... I only want to be in position if we have another pump like we did November of 2014.
If bitcoin price rises, so does the price of the rigs. I could potential sell the rigs at the same price (used), if not more, on eBay if that scenario works out. It's all about timing in my opinion. The next ten months will be very interesting indeed for bitcoin and for mining. I had to have "something" in the game. I might lose a little or I might make a lot after selling bitcoin mined later down the road and selling the rigs at a potentially higher price on eBay. Who knows? Only time and a little luck will tell us. Depending on difficulty, I may buy 14 more S7's in December to be prepared for the spring.
I have my thoughts about price of bitcoin and difficulty, just as I'm sure you have your own. As for who's will be correct as time passes??? Only time will tell. Some might say, "Buy bitcoin instead of rigs." I'm a gambler. I'm going to try to mine the same amount of btc I would have bought and sell the rigs for a little extra profit once I'm finished. That's the plan anyway. You can try to sway others to avoid what I'm doing. That's fine. I don't mine. It's a little late to sway me; as I have already purchased 9 of them. You might sway me from purchasing 14 more in December. Only time will tell. I'm open minded.