I don't agree. I think ASICs are a big problem. It raises the entrance level much too high. If someone wants to try BTC, they can only get it by buying with fiat money. But as LR is shutdown, Mt account is locked, it is not so easy to transfer fiat money into BTCs. What's more, ASICs are designed only for mining and are worthless in other areas. More and more powerful ASICs are joining the battle everyday, making it an arms race.
I must have imagined those times I earned bitcoin for my labor.
If you don't have a skill that can be done over the internet, perhaps you could offer goods for sale. Reliance on fiat is an assumption you are making that doesn't hold if you get a little creative.
You are right there is an arms race at the moment, but within 2 years bitcoin ASICs will catch up to the top of the line transistor sizes and after that we will have the steady 18 month doubling that is seen in CPUs and GPUs. At this point, ASIC hardware prices will fall through the floor and mining will once again have a very low barrier to entry. In the mean time, a small portion of people taking the risk of buying now will come out ahead. The rest will be lucky to break even and many will take a loss. Once the technology stabilizes, most of the risk will be gone and anybody who want to will able to earn a very small margin.
Well, I do not see an end of the arms race. And, I do not think ordinary people will buy ASIC machines to convert cash into BTC. It is hard for them to accept BTC, let alone buying the ASIC. Buying an ASIC is always an investment for professionals / geeks as ASIC is expensive and can only be used in mining. ASIC hardware prices may fall to the ground, but those kinds of ASIC will not be break-even. Why? In an arms race, entry level serves as cannon fodder - Only the top ones can be break-even or profitable. You can see the hash rate in BTC now. I wonder how many of ASIC owners can really get their money back.