I should probably stop replying to you but just because I don't want you to dumb down what I think is an important factor often disregarded, I will put it very explicitly and simple so you can't twist it around:

I was talking about the psychological drive, shared by many people, of building their own little growth and independence project that may or may not return. Those often grow quite large and into totally unproductive projects (measured in terms of "paying debts") such as growing flowers for fun. The drive is the same.

What I did personally is irrelevant but like I said I successfully fought the temptation of getting into the BFL scam and a few others. I always tried to see it rationally as a pure investment but we all know by now that the most rational thing investment wise is to just buy Bitcoin for the price of your miner instead of ordering it, don't we?  After Sam's announcement of queue trading, I bought an early Day 1 order so that I would maximise my chances of ROI (which actually payed off). But the fundamental background psychological drive that is blind to pure rational ROI considerations is there. In me and, I would dare say, in nearly everyone else ordering a miner.

You don't have to look very far to see this drive affecting people's investments here or anywhere else. The degree to which it does affect them varies but it's there. Here's a quote from a few hours ago:


Sure, 1 BTC is not much, but proportionally a lot worse than a Jupiter pre-order. Call it a vase with a crippled tomato plant that your friend sold you instead of a green house bought from a specialist contractor.


Since Bitcoin mining is a zero sum game, hobbyists will actually have an impact against pure profit driven mining farms. This is actually good for Bitcoin because it works against  centralisation of mining.