Many years back, the gold companies knew they could use leeching techniques to extract minute quantities of gold from huge piles of dirt. Back then it was abandoned as too expensive. Now that the value of gold has gone up, they are starting to use these techniques to get that gold. Through inflation, it now cost more to leech that gold than it would have when they refused to do it, yet the added value makes it worthwhile. The major mining concerns care about fiat, it's only certain individuals who care about holding the gold, mainly due to the amount needed to invest.
The gold will get mined sooner or later, it just depends on the cost vs the reward in Fiat. The same is true of BTC. Few people are able to buy and hold when compared to all of the people mining. The paying BTC to mine more BTC only works for certain individuals. To repeat what has been said to me... You can lead a horse to water.......
I am not sure I completely understand your analogy.
You guys spout the "buy BTC instead of buying equipment" jingle over and over, yet the people(horses) reading you won't take heed (drink) just cause it is the proper thing to do.
Buying the mining equipment does 2 things, it gives you a tangible asset that you can see working on your pool charts and it gives you a non-liquid asset. BTC can be spent on a whim, a sudden drop in value can cause panic selling and a quick rise can cause profit-taking or a buy-in hoping it will rise higher. Last April, how many people happily sold at $50 only to buy back in at $100 or $150 or $200? How few actually were actually able to sell at $250? Fiat is something tangible people can understand well. BTC is like play money. I can remember trips to Hong Kong (where their unit is also dollars), but it was around $8HK to $1US. I saw people who would never consider spending $100US on something tossing out $800HK like it was a ten or twenty. They viewed it as play money and got burnt.
That is the perception of a lot of miners... BTC is just a medium to get fiat. Without the necessary discipline to put it away and ignore it, all the advice in the world matters not.