I respect what you're trying to say, but this statement by KnC is a little bit BS IMO. Who's in charge of making this "more and more" expensive hardware? Why do these manufacturers insist on end-goals of creating >1TH machines that consume more power than the average home circuit will allow?
They don't have to, they choose to. If KnC cared about the little guy, why not package a single 28nm die and sell it to third party designer/manufactures just like everyone else? I think it's a little hypocritical to talk about how poor it is of manufacturers to leave the little guy with no option, then turn around and do exactly that. Instead they're just pushing to make larger power hungry machinery meant for datacenters. That's fine, but don't pass off a private 10PH farm under their direct control as a means to supporting the little guy.
Because the driving force of all things is personal gain.
I want a larger share than you so that I will make more. Hence, larger/faster/more efficient machines. As I said before, I'm not trying to advocate the actions of KnC, but it is entirely inevitable that overall selfish greed drives intent for larger profit. Nobody will resign to a gentleman's agreement and say, my slice of the cake is large enough.
But they're not leaving the little guy with no option -they will offer affordable cloudhashing. Maybe you're not thinking about a small enough guy? You can't deny that cloudhashing is extremely accessible and more affordable to every average person. There is a tremendously wider customer market for such a service. What percentage of people do you think has the capacity to run, mod and maintain a miner at home?
As far as what KnC chooses to do; 1)Create larger machines for cloudhashing services or 2) create many, many cheap chips to distribute among small miners -that's entirely their prerogative to choose for their business. If you don't agree with that model or share that same perspective, you can vote with your wallet by buying from another vendor. (Hopefully, we see more manufacturers that do take route 2 as I DON'T want to subscribe to cloudhashing either)