Guys c'mon, I thought we we're above comparing prices/performance for Ready to Ship products, against potential vapourware items
The main reason WHY you can get it for less is because you'll get it later, When it will be worth less ~= same price but there is no "proper" math for this equation
Get 5gh/s now, or 7gh/s in "2-3 weeks" for the same price, Take your pick.... *eyeroll*
Yup, huge difference between throwing money at a pre-order versus paying for a ready-to-ship product that you can guarantee won't ROI. Huge difference.
Yeah, it's funny and then you have the potential resellers who are screaming that the guy is gouging buyers, which may be true, partly because they can't buy the sticks and resell them themselves because the price is too high. The only game right now if you're trying to make money on BTC is to buy and hold or arbitrage. There's just too much demand for mining equipment right now.
Ehh, not really. Yes there are folks on here who are hot to resell. Personally, I like low power, easy-to-use solutions. BFL mini single has been great for that, AM sticks as well. I still have >20 of those running simply because I have a home server on all the time anyway so the extra power draw is negligible. I think a lot of people want reasonably priced equipment that is plug-n-play, which is why any time people start talking about USBs it brings on equal parts excitement and hesitation because it fills the easy-to-use checkbox but people worry about AM-style pricing, aka slightly higher than expected ROI but close enough it and with low enough power draw that it can be worthwhile.
Agreed on buying and arbitrage though, that has made us more in the last few weeks than any mining equipment we still own. Unfortunately though we're playing the dance of not bringing the USD back out of the system because Capital One shut down the account we had used for eBay, Amazon, etc., out of the blue without a reason why, so until we have more favorable information that a bank won't screw with our account because we're touching BTC we aren't pulling cash out of the system yet.
But in looking at some of the TH offerings out there, we're looking past what is reasonable for the community/hobbyist to run without custom electrical lines being run. If the community is going to remain part of mining there needs to be easy-to-use, low powered options that may not be bringing in tons of BTC but provide a reasonable return. If within the [ROI > price > cost to manufacture] pricing structure, people can make a killing. Unfortunately things like this where the price jumps from 178 euro to .55BTC just end up pissing people off. As cool as the tech might be I personally won't take a huge loss to buy something "nifty".