Oh, and I think you must be pretty dense to not realize that EVERYONE KNOWS THAT IT'S IN MINERS' BEST INTEREST TO DISCOURAGE OTHERS. It's not like you're letting the cat out of the bag or anything.
"Oh no, the jig is up!" ...Not hardly.
Everyone knows that anything negative spouted on this forum about mining is partly to defend our own future profitability. You think some people don't know that?
A reader needs to take everything on its own merit -- either it's true or it isn't. And yes, a person should read the pros AND THE CONS of something like bitcoin mining before jumping in head-first. It's called getting a balanced view.
You think all the stuff I pointed out is just so much BS calculated to scare you away from mining? Go ahead and believe that at your own peril. I didn't post *anything* that isn't 100% true. Heck, half the time I post mathematical figures, which don't lie.
Your calculations are stupid for the same reason that the same calculations were stupid back in may, and in april before that, and in march before that. They're the same calculations.
Profitability depends on one thing: price of bitcoins. Since you can't predict this, you can't predict profitability.
Mining is betting that the bitcoin price will stay above a certain threshold. Buying coins is betting that the bitcoin price will go up.
Each bet has different risk profiles and can be approached differently, but both of them are just bets on the price of bitcoins, same as they were back in may.
There is nothing inherantly less profitable about the current moment than there was back in May - in fact it is easy to argue that bitcoins are a smarter and safer bet now than they were then.
Since I'm a miner, telling the truth goes against my self-interest. But the reason I don't mind telling the truth is because I do this primarily as a hobby, for fun, and because I think bitcoins are cool and have a future. I also think the long-term health of bitcoins will be bolstered by more people invested in them, by more miners, more decentralization, more activity, more interest.
So if a newbie reads my post and goes and buys mining hardware I will lose a bit of money in the short-term because of that, but in the long-term I don't mind.
Also, I just generally am pissed off by all you douche bags with your fear mongering and discouragement. I don't like you lying assholes on a personal level - the way you say one thing and do something else.
Again, I'm not going to lower myself to calling names.
Where have I lied? No one has showed me a single "lie" that I have posted.
I'm just telling them to use their heads and be rational. That is all.
Nobody needs to "encourage" any newbie -- greed (which is part of human nature) does that role just fine. My "job" is to balance things, to help people think more clearly.