I not a fan of such arrogant behaviour.
As a result, for the last few months, I've been taking advantage of the low BTC/USD pricing, and every time I think about buying another miner, I just buy 1BTC instead on Coinbase and think to myself "Now wasn't that easier and more cost-effective ?"
Given the current price of ~$235 USD/BTC, it doesn't make any financial sense purchasing miners at their current pricing. An S5 priced at $340 is presently looking @ ~1year of runtime for ROI, excluding electrical and power supply costs.
It doesn't make any sense at all to buy Bitmain products, presently - A ROI will be difficult and uncertain.
+1. the prices are a bit high, yet understandable.
1) theres minimal competition
2) theres a strong market within china (where the shipping cost is <40% of sending overseas)
3) The units could be profitable for those with <7c/kwh power (especially if located in china and saving a large chunk of the shipping cost)
to be entirely honest, its all a gamble. If BTCUSD rises, mining returns will increase and hashrate will follow. However, theres a good chance that if BTC were to rise 4x in price in the next 12 months, difficulty would likely struggle to keep up since theres limited new production at the moment.