I was told the same thing last year May 1st 2014 that bitcoin is too volatile, miners cost too much (S5=$350-400) and you would never make a profit. I bought 1, then I went big and bought $20K in miners. 4 months later I paid the miners off, sold them for the same and MORE than I paid for them. I made a nice profit.
The biggest difference between early 2014 and early 2016 is now we have the halving on the immediate horizon and that throws a whole box of monkey wrenches into the machine. Things could go exactly the same now as they did then and we might be seeing people selling their S7s for a profit this summer, or we could see a dramatic loss of value in these same miners.
Hosting is a great option right now, but I really enjoy the hardware aspect of bitcoin, so I like having my miners where I can interact physically with them. Sometime I just sit and stare at them hashing away...