I think the strategy of AM is effectively to offer a much cheaper price for the hardware they sell in order to make it impossible for the competition to sell their miners. That way the competition loses their income streams! I believe AM doesn't rely on the profits they make from selling the hardware. I think they're quietly deploying respectable amounts of self- and franchised-hash rate and for now use the revenue to deploy even more. One day FC will come around the corner and say "well, look at our 15% of the hash rate" - is that soo improbable?
I will donate 0.5 BTC to Sean's Outpost when AM will reach 15% of the hashrate!
Ha, quoting you right there! I don't necessarily think they'll achieve 15%, but why not at least 5%? I don't think that's totally unrealistic, maybe even 10%. I'm just saying, who knows what AM is doing, they may very well be putting massive amounts of hash rate online as we speak!