I really believe in bitcoins from a philosophical standpoint but reality is, i'm mostly looking for (development) projects which would earn me money (in the long term). The reason I believe most in bitcoin is because from a technological point of view it's imho the most correct solution. I have nothing against PayPal for example but reading how they act and freeze accounts. That's simple something that's not possible with bitcoins.. (as far as i known..)
As far as investing in hardware, I'm willing to do that as long as the ROI is quick. I don't have enough money to invest in something that only makes a profit in a year. (I know that from an investment point of view a year is nothing but not for me it is right now)
I hoped that with ASIC being the cool new thing, it would take a while before everybody would adopt but reading the forums more and more I have some doubts. Everybody with some investment in the bitcoin scene is following this and this won't be the easy money I had secretly hoped for. But that's ok, I'll find myself the right project someday..
I'm a good developer and a have a nice bitcoin related project that is halfway hehe Hope to release it soon.
thanks all you guys for your replies..
If you look at it as an investment (or as growing an income stream). Then mining makes sense.
For example spending 1300 on an sc single which at 40x difficulty will bring ~0.5 btc per day. Say the support for price of btc is above 10 USD. so a ballpark estimate is ~200 USD a month. That puts ROI at 6 months. that's ~200% per year. That's a crazy good investment when compared to something stocks/bonds.
The important thing is to jump in with enough of a purchase to get close to your income stream goal. For about 5000 you could have 1000/month.
The other thing not to forget is that as more hashing power comes online the income will decline, to stay ahead of the game, you'll need to re-invest some percentage of your income from mining into buying new hardware.
I've only just really gotten to the point where reinvestment was sustainable for me. My plan post asic is: 20% reinvest, 20% savings as btc, 20% savings in other more traditional investments/diversifaction (think kids college fund), 20% for operating costs and other upgrades (solar panels, better cooling, computer parts etc) and 20% as income (lets be honest, my wife's going to spend it and call it a 'lifestyle upgrade').
The thing about mining is a profession is - it's constantly reducing what it makes - at some point when the block rewards becoming uselessly small there should (at least we all hope) be enough transactions to keep mining viable... once we hit that point in the process the profitability will finally reduce to match cost of mining... but by then i'm planning to be mining for near zero cost - what with my existing solar/hydro setups and the additional ones I'll be buying along the way.