Tone down your language please. You don't have to buy it if you don't like the price. This isn't food or water here.
True, however just as bitcoin is financial freedom, let members of this site express freedom of speech it is very useful for newbies and everyone in general, if it was not for freedom of speech newbies would be getting burned badly by knc, bfl, cointerra, fasf hash, and such.
I think it is a good to express ones thought on this issue since it will motivate bitmain not to be so greedy and motivate honestly, look at knc when they were becoming scammers a lot of people said do not criticize them they are the best we have, at the time it was true but valid critics prevented many from getting burned or not getting burned as much, same for bfl.
it is not like we have lots of choices for buying mining equipment, right now from 2 vendors we have been reduced to only 1, unless of course bitmain realizes to scam miners like the bad guys is bad for business and decides to remain one of the good guys, then we have 2 vendors to choose from.
Remember a miner must ROI, if it does not ROI it can not be considered for purchase, the concept of barely ROI is not a good one, it shoudl ROI in a decent way.
Everyone should have the right to express themselves as long as it is related to the topic, it is in everyone's best interest, I have always been against censorship on any type.
It is true that bitmain is free to raise the prices to whatever they like, and it is also true for us to voice our opinion that it is no longer a good business decision for us.
it is a simple matter of math, if the high price is good or not, I will provide a link to a ROI calculator, I can assure you based on the link below that it is overpriced, and could take up to a year to ROI for someone with low electric rates, which is not acceptable.
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/calculator
based on the calculator make your decision.
As of now sp20 is a much better choice by the simple fact that it costs a lot less and you get much better GH/s per BTC, the S5 could be a better choice if the price was right but it is not.
believe me it is in our best interest to have freedom of speech and to have 2 vendors to choose from instead of one when deciding to buy mining hardware, but if one vendor decides that instead of selling the hardware it is better for him to mine with it, it is his choice, and of course we can voice our opinion and support the vendor that helps us achieve ROI sooner than later, sometimes later never comes as the time to ROI is infinity.
Bitmain has been an honest vendor in regards to shipping on time, but does not help us if we will not ROI due to greed, in 6 months from now an S5 will be under $200, but it will be because there is something better out there and cheaper not an act of goodwill.
This valid critics are very useful to help in the decentralization of mining, we really do not want large mining farms own by the vendor of mining hardware it is not in our interest, in the old days of independent miners the miners kept their coins, now non independent miners which have most of the hash power sells the coins as soon as they can making the price of BTC go down, this did not happen in the early days of bitcoin, we really need the independent miners back, it will help decentralize mining.
In the bitcoin world decentralization is your friend.
Lets do not forget mining is an essential part of the bitcoin economy.