Yep this is why I created this post. Those who have to pay above 10c per KW for electricity, should start wind down their operation now. The only miners that can remain in the game for the long run, are those that pay zero or almost nothing for electricity. These people will laugh at difficulty rise, price drop, they don't care, they will still turn a profit. You just can't compete with these guys.
Wow, 203 posts and you still do not know that you need mining for the transactions to go through?
Oh, I know that. By 'we don't need miners' I mean we don't need hoards generating bitcoins for little to no profit at current prices. There will always be miners out there mining with very cheap or 'free' electricity, so transactions will always go through.
The hash rate has barely risen over the past few weeks so it seems we're well past the moment where GPU mining is attractive. Next up is FPGA mining, assuming someone puts together an attractive package.