All about future value. Some people can afford to mine for losses, others can't.
That makes no sense....
For example, if u will mine and make 20 dollar loss in a month. U should just buy bitcoin. The end result is that u get 20 dollars more bitcoin for the same amount of money u would have paid for electricity. U dont have to buy hardware either.
U will get $1000 of bitcoin from buying bitcoin, rather than get $980 bitcoin from mining, in this example.
Moderator's note: This post was edited by frodocooper to remove a nested quote.