Well I didn't quite mean it like that. I think the difference between the two is how much money you have to invest. And with out a doubt there are stupid people with money to invest. And smart people with little money to invest.
This thread does have a lot of hobbyists. And I have learned a good bit off of them. For example. There were many people on this very thread that wrote "do not buy the first few batches of the s9. They will have problems just like the S5 and s3 did". And I did not buy until batch 5. Which must be the reason why I am not having any problems. So it sounds like other people did not use the same wisdom.
I disagree. It's not how much you have to invest; it's what proportional importance mining has to your overall situation. A hobbyist does something because they enjoy it, and can afford to "lose" money on it...perhaps. I've been mining since the beginning, and I think that to assume because I run around 24TH at this point in time that I'm a hobbyist is...frankly...ridiculous. I'm partially disabled and live primarily on VA disability and SS. Mining provides a significant percentage of my net spendable (or invest-able, depending). OTOH, there was at time back in the day when I had a net worth of ~USD15M (1980 dollars). The crash in '07, plus nearly dying, drained every pence of my resources, and changed all that. So...I think those sorts of comparisons are not very helpful, because I'm not unique in that way.
My last point is that one should not have to think about waiting for the first few batches to show up the real bugs before buying...or that there should be a situation requiring...basically...running the mfr's burn-in beta tests at the expense of your customers' power and frustration. Now, THAT sucks.
