Or the days before that, when a single GPU could easily make 0.01 BTC per day. That was kind of nice.
No before that a single GPU was mining 1 a day, so 50BTC + fees from a 5870. Of course if you bought Bitcoin instead of the 5870 back then you would have had thousands of BTC
Unless you have a time machine you can't go back to those days - you can only focus on the current time.
Good point... we all look back saying ooh those were the days.... frankly if I had a time machine and went back a couple of years I'd buy bitcoin, hell mining didn't work as a profit generator back then if you think about it, it was still better to buy coins.
To be honest I have to remind myself too that mining fees are only a temporary fix to help get bitcoin going.... I think what satoshi had in mind was mining costs being covered, not that mining should be a profit generator.
In the mean time I may buy an old miner, something fairly efficient but of a size meaning it only uses around 2-300 watts and then run it as me doing my bit
I already run a full node as my contribution.