Who cares about difficulty when markets are down 20% in hours only? Instant ice-age.
If you take mining for what it is and always has been, a long term investment and hedge against being left holding the bag by buying coins directly, the day to day prices are irrelevant.
How does holding the bag differ from holding the hardware? And don't get me wrong, I am a miner too.
fact: difficulty will rise
--> we need bull markets to level that diff rise
--> better daily profits need markets to rise more than diff
--> if you are sure markets will rise more than diff why don't you buy in then?
fact: only way to do some serious profits with rigs is to mine, hold and wait.
--> needs rising markets to happen
--> if you are sure markets will rise why don't you buy in then?
fact: trading makes profits both ways
--> today, miners will run through excels one more time, are we going below $2/day/gpu?
--> today, shorters again made loads of cash
So, after all you made some mining profits?
That is no excuse to do bad investments with those profits. It is fun though...
Investing directly in the coin you generally only have one way to profit. The coin you buy goes up in value and you sell it for more than you paid for it. If the coin goes down or to zero, you take 100% of the loss. A mining rig is an asset that has a value other than mining, which can be sold or repurposed towards any other coin YOU choose for little risk other than your power cost once it's paid off. As such you have more ways to come out ahead than you do if you just buy the coin.